Travel Quarantine Rules – Impact On Employers

Those arriving in the UK (or returning to the UK from abroad) on or after 8th June will be required to self-isolate, i.e. they are not allowed to leave the place they are staying for the first 14 days they’re (back) in the UK.

There are limited exceptions to these rules for those maintaining essential supply chains, national infrastructure and other essential Government work.

There are fines ranging from £1,000 to £3,200 for non-compliance.

Impact of travel quarantine rules on employers

At the moment, only essential foreign travel is allowed. However, many employers have raised concerns about the consequences of the travel quarantine rules for employees who do choose to holiday abroad once travel restrictions are lifted.

These rules could mean that employees who holiday abroad are not able to attend their workplace for 14 days when they return to the UK. Employers are understandably concerned about the impact this could have on their organisations.

The Government guidance on this policy does not refer to the employment consequences.

Currently, where employees are required to self-isolate due to:

• Developing coronavirus symptoms;
• Someone in their household developing coronavirus symptoms;
• Being alerted by the Government track and trace service that they have come in to contact with someone infected with the coronavirus; or
• Because they are clinically extremely vulnerable and required to shield, employees should be permitted to work from home if this is possible or should be deemed as sick (and therefore entitled to contractual or statutory sick pay).

As yet, there is no reference to post-travel self-isolation within the guidance on sick pay for employees who cannot work due to the coronavirus.

Advice to employers

Where employees can work from home without any detriment to the employer, or are already working from home, probably the employer will not have any objection to them doing so for their quarantine period.

For employees who cannot work from home, our advice, based on the current guidance is that employers are not obliged to arrange work for them to do from home or to pay them for their absence beyond their holiday period.

Our current advice to employers is that they should be actively communicating with all staff about the potential consequences of their travel plans. It is perfectly reasonable for employers to say that if the travel quarantine requirements are still in place then employees will need to request additional holiday or a period of unpaid leave to accommodate this. Employers will have their usual discretion whether to allow this or not and this may well breach their usual maximum holiday durations.

Employers can also communicate that they would consider any absence post-holiday periods to be unauthorised where employees have travelled abroad in full knowledge that this will mean they cannot attend work for 14 days thereafter.

Employers will also need to be careful that they are not seen to be encouraging employees to breach the quarantine rules.

Where employers consider this (and requirements to self-isolate following track and trace notifications) to be a significant issue for their organisations then they are advised to formulate their rules and policies now and communicate them clearly to the workforce to avoid ambiguity or misunderstanding further down the line.