How Private Investigations Can Help a Business During Covid
- December 7, 2020
Since the beginning of the second country-wide lockdown following a rise in Covid-19 infections, and the government’s insistence that employees who can work from home should work home, many businesses have reported a significant downturn in productivity.
The Impact of Covid on Productivity
The changing guidance and prolonged blow that Covid is dealing to business enterprises of all sizes and across many industries, has had a disastrous impact on many businesses, charities and organisations.
Many businesses have reported that working from home initiatives have reduced productivity and many more have already gone out of business, or are teetering on the edge of liquidation.
As a result, business owners are doing everything they can to protect their employees, financial resources and ultimately, the viability of their business. One of the biggest concerns reported by some is staff refusing to return to work, or indeed, coming into work when they should be isolating.
So what can business owners do?
The team here at Delta 74 Private Investigations have seen an increase in the number of commercial surveillance cases we’ve been hired to help with, concerning employees’ activities. Some of the most common reasons a business might contact us during the pandemic include:
1. Self-isolating Staff
Current government guidance is to self-isolate at the first signs of a potential Covid infection or based on an alert from the Track and Trace system.
This means that employees must stay home for 2 weeks, if they experience any symptoms to protect others around them.
As a result, many companies have introduced paid leave for employees who are self-isolating, to encourage staff with symptoms to stay away from work. However, this has led to an increase in some untrustworthy people taking advantage of paid schemes and reporting covid symptoms when they are perfectly well.
We can undertake employee sickness surveillance on individuals who say they are self-isolating, to find out if they actually are. If our investigation uncovers that they are still socialising, shopping or having visitors to their homes, businesses owners can use our evidence to enforce disciplinary action and protect the financial resources of the business.
2. Quarantining Staff
To confirm where employees are holidaying and ensure they’re quarantining when required.
Some employees, worried about losing income due to self-isolating after taking a holiday to a destination known to have a high risk of exposure to Covid-19. As a result they are lying to employers so they can return to work sooner. Businesses are concerned, not only because they have a duty of care to protect their staff from exposure to the virus, but also because of the risk this would pose to the community and the integrity of business.
Our investigators can make enquiries of exactly where the employee has been on holiday, to ensure the employer can rightfully refuse to allow them back to work for the required quarantine period.
3. Furloughed Employees
The furlough scheme has helped to keep people employed and paid, but there are limits to what employees on furlough can do.
Many employers would not allow their employees to take a second job while employed, furloughed or not, and yet some individuals are taking up work with another employer to maximise their income whilst benefiting from the furlough scheme.
If you suspect your employee is working for someone else without your approval, whilst on furlough, we can help uncover the truth and provide evidence for you to subject your employee to a disciplinary action.
Similarly, some furloughed employees are taking advantage of the scheme by claiming to be unable to return to work due to anxiety or shielding. This can be difficult for employers to manage if they need the employee back at work to do their job! We can undertake surveillance to find out the truth.
Delta 74 Private Investigations
The team at Delta 74 have been working with business owners for many years, to uncover fraud or theft and help to secure the integrity, assets and finances of the company. Employee sickness investigations are nothing new, but during the pandemic, fake claims of sickness are on the rise and can cost businesses thousands of pounds per employee!
Contact our team today to find out how our employee investigation services can help to keep your business operating as close to normal as possible.
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