If an employee becomes a confirmed case of COVID-19, the employee must not attend work in any circumstances. This is part of your obligation to provide a safe workplace for your staff and others.

The employee must ring the DHHS Coronavirus Hotline on 1800 675 398 and follow all health advice provided. This will include requirements for self-quarantining until they recover. They should not return to work until they receive a clearance from a medical practitioner. It is imperative that employees adhere to medical advice and government directives. Employees should maintain regular communication with their manager in relation to their ability to work and to attend the workplace.

The employer must also call the DHHS Coronavirus Hotline on 1800 675 398 to seek advice. What needs to be done to meet your health and safety obligations will depend on the specific circumstances.

Symptoms of COVID-19 include: shortness of breath, fever, sore throat and coughing.

If the employer has a reasonable suspicion that an employee has contracted COVID-19, the employer must not direct the employee to come into work. If the employee is at work, the employee should immediately leave work and call the DHHS Coronavirus Hotline on 1800 675 398 and and/or seek immediate health assistance.

An employer may request a medical clearance from the employee before returning to work.

Close contact is defined as:

• Spending more than 15 minutes face to face with a person who is a confirmed case in the 24 hours before they showed symptoms or once they showed symptoms; or
• Sharing a closed space for more than two hours with a person who is a confirmed case in the 24 hours before they showed symptoms or once they showed symptoms.

In these circumstances the employee will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days to ensure that they do not develop any symptoms of COVID-19 before they return to work. It is imperative that employees adhere to medical advice and government directives. Employees should maintain regular communication with their manager in relation to their ability to work and to attend the workplace.

Casual contact is defined as:

• Spending fewer than 15 minutes face to face with a person who is a confirmed case in the 24 hours before they showed symptoms or once they showed symptoms; or
• Sharing a closed space for fewer than two hours with a person who is a confirmed case in the 24 hours before they showed symptoms or once they showed symptoms.

If the employee does not have any symptoms of COVID-19 (i.e. fever, shortness of breath, sore throat and coughing), the employee must monitor themselves for 14 days but can continue to attend work. In such cases, an employer and employee may agree to take some prudent steps to avoid the spread of the virus. These may include allowing the employee to work from home or enabling the employee to take some form of leave (whether paid or unpaid).

It is imperative that employees adhere to medical advice and government directives. Employees should maintain regular communication with their manager in relation to their ability to work and to attend the workplace.

Some employees are particularly anxious in relation to COVID-19 for various reasons. For instance, an employee may have a particular health condition that places them in a higher risk category in relation to COVID-19. As a result, such employees may not want to come into work, despite not having COVID-19 and being otherwise healthy.

In these circumstances, employers should consider whether they can accommodate an employee’s request and either allow them to work from home or alternatively, to allow the employee to take annual leave, long service leave, banked RDOs or unpaid leave.

All people returning to Australia from travel overseas must follow the Australian Border Force and the DHHS’s directions to quarantine. The Victorian Premier has also announced that Victoria will be placed in a State of Emergency. This allows the Victorian Police to enforce -quarantine measures and to impose penalties on individuals or bodies corporate that do not comply with requirements to quarantine.

If any of your employees are returning from overseas, the employees cannot come back into workplace until they are released from quarantine.

An employee who has developed COVID-19,  or has some of the symptoms of COVID-19, is unfit for work and entitled to access paid personal/carers (sick) leave until they are fit to return to work. If the employee doesn’t have sufficient personal leave accrued, they can access unpaid personal leave or, alternatively, you and the employee can agree to the employee accessing annual leave, long service leave or accrued RDOs.

If the employee is required to self-quarantine, but is otherwise well, the employee and employer may reach an agreement in relation to the period of self-quarantine. If it is feasible for the business, an employee can work from home. Alternatively, the employer and the employee can agree for the employee to take accrued annual leave, long service leave, utilising banked RDOs or unpaid leave.

If the employee, while on the period of quarantine, becomes unwell and would be unfit to work, they can access their personal leave entitlement while unwell.

If you are required by your industrial instrument to contribute to Incolink, your employees may be able to access entitlements from the Incolink Portable Sick Leave fund. Entitlements with Incolink’s Portable Sick Leave Fund may be utilised if the employee has exhausted their paid personal/carer’s leave with their employer.

Employees may also be eligible to access Job Seeker coronavirus supplement or if they are eligible employees of a JobKeeper eligible employer they may be able to receive the JobKeeper fortnightly payments of $1,500.

As a result of COVID-19, there are disruptions to schools and childcare services. If an employee is at work and they are required to collect their child from school or childcare because the facility was closed due to COVID-19, the employee may utilise their personal/carer’s leave to collect their child. In this circumstance, it can be considered an unexpected emergency and the personal/ carer’s leave entitlement may be utilised to collect the child and provide immediate care.

Where an employee is required to stay at home to look after children who would normally be in school or childcare  the employee will not be able to use their personal/carer’s leave unless that child (or other dependent) becomes unwell and they are required to care for that child. Where an employee has children that need ongoing care due to a school or childcare closure, the employee and employer may come to an agreement to work from home if it is possible or to use their annual leave, long-service leave, banked RDOs or go on a period of unpaid leave.

Before any employee is stood down with no pay, the employer needs to carefully consider the terms of the applicable enterprise agreement and/or the contract of employment.

Under the Fair Work Act, an employee can be stood down without pay if they cannot be usefully employed due to a stoppage of work for any cause for which the employer cannot be held responsible. Some examples of a stand down under the Fair Work Act include:

• if there was an enforceable government direction requiring the business to close (which means there is no work at all for the employees to do, even from another location)
• if a large proportion of the workforce was required to self-quarantine with the result that the remaining employees/workforce cannot usefully be employed
• if there was a stoppage of work due to lack of supply for which the employer could not be held responsible.

This will not apply merely to a downturn in work or economic conditions.

It is noted that with the recent introduction of the JobKeeper legislation, if an employer is eligible to receive JobKeeper payments, they may be able to stand down their eligible employees (including reducing their hours or days of work) in accordance with the temporary changes to the Fair Work Act.  You can read more about the JobKeeper stand down in our JobKeeper FAQs available in the Covid-19 resources section. Otherwise, you can contact our IR Team on (03) 9411 4555.

Even where employers stand down employees, we suggest that you seek to reach agreement with employees to access a form of accrued paid leave (i.e. annual leave) for the period of the stand down or agree to go on unpaid leave. Employers should be aware that a contract of employment or enterprise agreement may modify the ability to stand down employees under the Fair Work Act. Any members contemplating a stand- down should seek further advice from the Master Builders IR Department on (03) 9411 4555.

If any of your employees are engaged on a casual basis, those employees are unlikely to be entitled to personal leave, annual leave or long-service leave. This is the nature of casual employment and the reason why casual employees receive a casual loading.

Under the new JobKeeper wage subsidy a ‘long-term casual’ (being a casual that has been employed on a regular and systematic basis for a minimum of twelve months) will qualify for the JobKeeper payment. For those who do not qualify under this definition, it’s important that employers work together with their casual workforce to mitigate the financial impact of COVID-19 wherever possible.  

The JobKeeper Payment scheme is a wage subsidy to assist businesses that are significantly impacted by COVID-19. The purpose of the scheme is to assist businesses to pay and retain their staff.

Under JobKeeper, eligible businesses that have suffered significantly reduced turnover will be paid $1500 per fortnight (before tax), per qualifying employee, for up to six months.

The payments will commence from 1 May 2020 and will be backdated to 30 March 2020.

Businesses (including sole traders) must meet the necessary conditions to be eligible for the JobKeeper Payment scheme. For businesses with annual aggregated turnover less than $1 billion, the turnover of the business must have reduced (or will reduce) by more than 30% (of at least one month).

Yes, the apprentices are covered, but only if they meet all the relevant employee eligibility requirements.

To be qualified, employees must meet the following criteria:

• Employees must currently be employed by an eligible employer;
• Employees must have been employed by the employer on 1 March 2020;
• Employees must be employed full-time, part-time or as a ‘long-term’ casual (being a casual employee that had been employed on a regular and systematic basis for longer than 12 months as at 1 March 2020):
  • Note that this includes employees who have been stood-down, or employees who were terminated but have been re-hired by the employer);
• Employees must be at least 16 years old;
• Employees must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident, or hold other specified classes of visa; and

An employee can only have one employer receive JobKeeper Payments with respect to them (ie multiple employers cannot receive JobKeeper payments in respect of one individual, even if the individual is employed by multiple employers).

In order to receive the JobKeeper payment employers must do the following:

• Employers must elect to participate in the scheme.
• Employers can register their interest online now at the ATO website.
• Employers will subsequently need to apply for the JobKeeper Payment through an online application (expected to be available 20 April).
  • In applying for JobKeeper, employers will need to provide information to the ATO on the number of eligible employees engaged as at 1 March 2020 and those currently employed by the business (including those stood down or rehired). For most businesses the ATO will use Single Touch Payroll data to pre-populate the employee details for the business.
• The ATO will need to assess whether an employer has experienced the required turnover decline (employers will need to provide supporting information demonstrating the necessary downturn in their business).
• Once approved, employers must ensure that each eligible employee receives at least $1,500 per fortnight (before tax).
• Once approved, the employer must notify all eligible employees that they have nominated them as an eligible employee for the purposes of JobKeeper Payments.
• The employer must provide monthly updates to the ATO on the number of eligible employees employed by the business.

The Government has announced that the scheme will last up to six months, running from 30 March 2020 to 27 September 2020. The final period will start on Monday 14 September and end on Sunday 27 September 2020.

The changes made to the FW Act give employers temporary powers to implement flexibility measures in order to save jobs.

These powers allow employers to:

• issue JobKeeper enabling directions, including directions requiring to employees to:
  • work reduced hours or days (a JobKeeper enabling stand down direction);
  • undertake alternate duties; or
  • work at an alternate location;
• make JobKeeper requests, including requests that:
  • employees work on different days or alternate hours of work;
  • employees take accrued annual leave; and
  • make JobKeeper agreements with employees for annual leave to be taken at half pay.