Furlough how many days

We explain the implications of this in the section on calculating usual hours below. The government has produced a useful table explaining changes to the level of government contribution and the contribution required from the employer. What are our options? The employer contributions are mandatory if employees are receiving the grant.

If you cannot make your contribution then you will need to remove employees from the furlough scheme, and consider your other options such as agreeing new terms and conditions or redundancies - see our Restructuring the workplace post Covid — FAQS for employers.

No, but you may need a new or extended furlough agreement if you want to reduce furlough pay depending on how the terms of the existing agreement were framed. Flexible furlough continues to be an option, meaning employees can work part-time and receive a furlough grant for their unworked hours. No, flexible furloughing is an option. It is also possible to rotate employees between full furlough and work, or to bring some employees back permanently while others stay on furlough.

Making decisions about who returns to work can be complicated and it is necessary to ensure you do so in a non-discriminatory way. Is there a minimum or maximum number of working hours for employees on flexible furlough? No, you can agree any working arrangement with an employee on flexible furlough, and this can change from week to week. The grant and cap will be reduced in proportion to the hours not worked.

The approach to calculating usual hours depends on whether the employee is contracted to work for a fixed number of hours and whose pay does not vary according to the number of hours they work or whether the employee works variable hours, with pay varying by time worked. We explain this below.

You need to start by calculating usual working hours for the period you are claiming for. For employees whose pay is fixed and does not vary by hours worked, the guidance says that this is based on the usual hours your employee was contracted for at the end of the last relevant pay period.

Our salaried employees are contracted to work whatever hours are required. How do we work out their usual hours? You should use the core, basic or notional hours stated in the contract e. This is likely to be the approach you will have taken when calculating their contracted hours for gender pay gap reporting purposes. How do we calculate usual hours for employees whose hours and pay varies? For employees who work variable hours, usual hours are not based on the hours you predict that they would have worked in the claim period if they had not been furloughed.

Nor can you simply agree the usual hours with an employee in their flexible furlough agreement. Instead, you must calculate usual hours by looking backwards at the usual hours they worked during an earlier period. For employees who were eligible for furlough under the original scheme whether or not they were actually placed on furlough , you must calculate usual hours based on the higher of either:.

The calculation is different for claims from March For these claims, you look back to the corresponding calendar period in , not This is because the employee may have been on furlough in the corresponding calendar period in The average hours worked in the tax year to should still be used if this is higher.

For new joiners from 20 March to 30 October who were not eligible for the furlough scheme when it first launched , the usual hours will be the average hours worked between:. For new joiners between 31 October and 2 March the calculation is based on the average hours worked between the date their employment started and the day before their furlough period begins which cannot be until after 1 May Note that you include overtime, provided the overtime payment was not discretionary this means that you include voluntary overtime provided the employee is paid an agreed contractual rate for overtime.

In relation to sick pay, we understand that HMRC are taking this to mean that you need to exclude any period when the employee was eligible for statutory sick pay, even if the employee was paid in full.

This marks a change in approach to the calculations. When you are using the lookback method, you use the actual amount the employee earned, even if they were on a period of statutory leave in the lookback period. The practical upshot of this is that, for claims from 1 May onwards you will need to revisit your average wage calculations. How do we calculate the unworked hours that we can claim for through the scheme? The calculations require you to look at usual hours and actual hours worked across every calendar day of the claim period including non-working days.

The employee in this example is asked to return to work half days, so you might think that the employer could claim half of the maximum furlough grant on the basis that he is on half-time furlough. In fact, this is not the case. In the example given his actual working hours for July come out at 92, whereas his furloughed hours come out at A separate calculation would need to be done for August, September and October.

In theory, yes, because the flexible furlough scheme is based on unworked hours. However, in practice we think you can use a daily system for these employees although we cannot be certain of this pending further clarification.

For example, these employees are likely to have a notional, core or basic day. In practice, it is likely to be easiest to agree a flexible furloughing arrangement which is based on days e. You would then calculate worked and unworked hours based on the notional daily hours. You need to be careful to avoid anything which could be seen as scheme abuse - for example, expecting employees to work longer days than they would usually work on their non-furloughed days. Shielding has been paused for the extremely clinically vulnerable since 1 April The latest 19 July guidance on protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable says that social distancing measures are ending in the workplace and it is no longer necessary to instruct employees to work from home.

Either remaining on furlough, working from home or taking unpaid leave is currently the cautious approach for extremely vulnerable employees if they are unhappy about returning to work. The HMRC guidance says that employers can furlough employees who are clinically extremely vulnerable even whilst shielding guidance is not in place, if they are following public health advice. Although current public health advice is that these employees can go to work, the latest guidance on protecting the clinically extremely vulnerable also says that they may be eligible for furlough even when shielding is paused, providing the employer agrees.

The HMRC guidance additionally says that employees with caring responsibilities resulting from coronavirus are eligible for furlough.

For HMRC audit purposes, you should ask for information to verify that they are unable to work even if this is more information than you might ordinarily ask for.

The position is less clear-cut for employees who are simply worried about the risks of working or commuting, although we think the risks are low if you only need some employees to come back and you are prioritising volunteers.

We look at this issue in more detail in our FAQs on staffing decisions when reopening workplaces. Can we do the same for furloughed employees before we bring them back to work? However, the furlough grant for hours not worked is based on pre-furlough pay. How do we maintain fair pay differentials between furloughed and non-furloughed staff? If, for example, you have employees with almost identical caring responsibilities in each of these groups, there is the potential for comparisons and a sense of unfairness unless this issue is managed carefully.

You may need to make adjustments to pay or top-ups to deal with this. What happens when the furlough scheme closes at the end of September ? However, if trading conditions have not improved sufficiently for you to take all the furloughed employees back when the scheme ends, you will be able to make them redundant. This is significant because other European countries that have similar schemes in place are imposing restrictions on employers making redundancies.

Can we make furloughed employees redundant before the scheme closes and still claim the grant? Yes, but since 1 December you cannot claim for any day when an employee is serving statutory or contractual notice. This includes employees serving notice of retirement or resignation. Note that the grant cannot be used for redundancy payments. We look at redundancy during and after furlough in more detail in our Restructuring the workplace post Covid 19 — FAQs for employers.

Can an employee on sick leave be furloughed? Yes, the guidance confirms that an employee can be moved from sick leave onto furlough. The CJRS is not intended to be used for short-term sickness absence, but if an employee is currently off sick they can still be furloughed. What if an employee becomes sick or is told to self-isolate while furloughed? If an employee becomes sick while on furlough, it is up to the employer to decide whether to move them onto SSP or keep them on furlough.

If the employee remains on furlough, you can continue to claim their salary through the furlough scheme.

What about employees on rotating or flexible furlough? What happens if they fall sick or are told to self-isolate? If an employee working under a flexible furlough or rotating furlough arrangement falls sick or is told to self-isolate in periods when they are due to be working, usual sick pay arrangements should apply and you should pay the SSP or company sick pay due.

For employees whose absence from work is related to Covid, new regulations have removed the three-day waiting period for payment of SSP. The position for the periods when a sick employee is due to go back on furlough is more complicated. An employee cannot be on sick leave and furlough simultaneously. It is not entirely clear from the government guidance if you could move a sick employee onto their expected turn on furlough, or if this would be considered an abuse of the scheme.

The guidance says that the furlough scheme is not intended for short-term absence and that short-term illness or self-isolation should not be a consideration in deciding whether to furlough an employee. On the other hand, the guidance also says that, if employers want to furlough employees for business reasons and they are currently off sick, they are eligible to do so, as with other employees.

Our interpretation of the guidance was that you should be able to move a sick employee back onto their due turn on furlough whether under a rotating furlough or flexible furloughing arrangement , provided they were genuinely due to be on furlough at that time and you have not moved them to furlough simply because they are sick. In the circumstances, the least risky approach would be to keep the employee on sick leave for the entire period.

This may also be administratively more convenient, but you would not be able to claim the furlough grant to help pay sick pay. Where sickness absence is not related to Covid and the three-day waiting period for SSP still applies, we do not think that intervening periods of furlough will mean the employee has to serve out waiting days again on returning from furlough.

Will workers continue to accrue holiday allowance while they are furloughed? Yes, because they remain employed. You could agree to reduce any enhanced contractual holiday beyond the statutory minimum of 5.

Can people ask or be required to take their holiday allowance while furloughed? This means that, if employees have pre-booked holidays, they will be able to take them - you do not need to allow rescheduling unless they would ordinarily have a right to reschedule. If you would like to require employees to take holiday during furlough, you would need to give twice as much notice as the length of the holiday you want them to take e.

Can we restrict employees taking holiday? The new right to carry over holiday of up to four weeks into the next two holiday years may assist disgruntled employees who have not been permitted to take holiday during furlough due to the extra cost to the employer.

The choice employers make have real effects on an employee's ability to retain their healthcare and retirement benefits and collect unemployment. A furlough is a temporary leave of absence that can last as long as an employer wishes.

Furloughs are usually imposed as a cost saving measure when an employer does not have the resources to pay its employees but does not want to lay them off.

During the leave, an employee does not get paid but they are still technically employed by the employer.

Furloughing a non-exempt employee can involve a mere reduction in hours or the complete cessation of work. Alternatively, a layoff is a separation of employment for an indefinite or permanent period of time. A laid off employee does not have any employment relationship with the employment thereafter. The main differences between a furlough and a layoff lie in the fact that a furloughed employee still retains its employee status. Thus, furloughed employees have an expectation that they will return to work when the furlough period ends.

If an employee has been laid off, there is no such expectation. Further, a furloughed employee typically retains their health insurance and life insurance benefits during the furlough. Some cookies are essential, whilst others help us improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.

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Search Search. Home Knowledge Services Employment. News and Events. Flexible furlough extended to September what are the rules? Who can be put on flexible furlough? Employees on any type of employment contract, including full-time, part-time, agency, flexible or zero-hour contracts can be put on flexible or full-time furlough as long as they were employed and on the payroll on the following dates: For periods ending on or before 30 April , employers can claim for employees who were employed on 30 October , as long as the employer made a PAYE Real Time Information RTI submission to HMRC between the 20 March and 30 October , notifying a payment of earnings for that employee.

How much will an employee that is flexibly furloughed be paid? Until the end of June the position is as follows: Employers will have to pay their employees in full for any hours the employee works.

What steps will the employer need to take when putting their employees on flexible furlough? What records will the employer need to keep? How do employers make their furlough pay claims for flexible furloughed employees?