Answer to Question #201242 in Management for kumar

Question

Covid 19 has posed a number of challenges for both employees and employers. What changes in enhancing work place should be included in the employment laws in your country? Critically examine and explain why they are needed.

Answer 1

Changes to enhance the workplace that can be included in employment laws in my country include:

Modification of Sick Leave provisions - WHO has recommended 14-day quarantine periods for people suspected to have been in contact with Coronavirus. The employment laws should create more favorable provisions in the case of Covid-19. Employees who are in self-quarantine should also be provided with a paid sick leave during the period. Employers could also be guided to increase the duration of unpaid sick leave by a further 7days to accommodate employees who contract Covid-19. This is necessary for staff who have been affected health wise by the virus as it eats up on all their sick days.

Place of work - employment laws should require employers to waive some of their rights under employment contracts to mitigate the risk of covid-19 spread in the workplace. Depending on the nature of the job, there should be addendums to enable employees to work remotely. This improves the work place by ensuring personnel are not caught up in Covid-19 restrictions such as curfew and travel.

No modification of salary reviews - employment laws should be placed to ensure, to the extent possible, that there is no change in the employees' salary structure due to Covid-19. In the exception where there is no other viable option for employers, they should obtain employees' consent. This will ensure employees' rights and motivation remains intact in the wake of the pandemic.

Modification of contractual obligations - Owing to restrictions on travel, transport, imports, exports and other restrictive measures by governments globally, contracts entered by parties have become temporarily impossible to perform. Under contract law, nonperformance amounts to breach of contract. Guided by employment laws, there should be a force majeure provision clause in contracts to offer relief to employees and businesses where non-performance of terms under the contract can be blamed on the Covid-19 pandemic. The law should be modified such that there's a force majeure provision for Covid-19 for new contracts. In the case of existing contracts, parties should review the contracts to include force majeure clauses that cover Covid-19.