Recruiting new staff while others are on furlough

juner53

Can an employer put staff on furlough and then recruit new staff?  The job title is different but this person has been doing some of the work of furloughed staff. Any help or advice is welcomed. 

MattMattMattUK

juner53 said:

Can an employer put staff on furlough and then recruit new staff?  The job title is different but this person has been doing some of the work of furloughed staff. Any help or advice is welcomed. 

Yes this is allowed.

unholyangel

MattMattMattUK said:

juner53 said:

Can an employer put staff on furlough and then recruit new staff?  The job title is different but this person has been doing some of the work of furloughed staff. Any help or advice is welcomed. 

Yes this is allowed.

Is it? Are the current employees furloughed because their employment duties being affected by covid, if the employer needs to hire someone else to perform those duties?

It may be allowable in some circumstances, but imo those circumstances would be quite limited. Especially now you can be flexibly furloughed. Originally an employer may have argued they don't have enough work so brought in staff adhoc on low hours. With Flexi furlough, that is no longer applicable. 

MattMattMattUK

unholyangel said:

MattMattMattUK said:

juner53 said:

Can an employer put staff on furlough and then recruit new staff?  The job title is different but this person has been doing some of the work of furloughed staff. Any help or advice is welcomed. 

Yes this is allowed.

Is it? Are the current employees furloughed because their employment duties being affected by covid, if the employer needs to hire someone else to perform those duties?

It may be allowable in some circumstances, but imo those circumstances would be quite limited. Especially now you can be flexibly furloughed. Originally an employer may have argued they don't have enough work so brought in staff adhoc on low hours. With Flexi furlough, that is no longer applicable. 

The OP said "some" of the work of furloughed staff, so for instance if the receptionist's job included opening the post, but that was performed by the newly recruited accountant, to allow them to check for incoming invoices and cheques etc. then it would not be reasonable to bring back the receptionists for ten minutes a day to open the post whilst not allowing the accountant to open it. I accept that is a rather extreme example, but it does illustrate the point. If they had said that the new recruit was doing a furloughed person's job in it's entirety (regardless of job title) then I would agree that was certainly not within the sprit of CJRS, even then I am not sure that it breaches the legislation and guidance.

od244051

If the employer has many employees who are shielding or on long term sick (covid and other things) then they have the rights to employ cover whilst their regular employees are off.

Jeremy535897

unholyangel said:

MattMattMattUK said:

juner53 said:

Can an employer put staff on furlough and then recruit new staff?  The job title is different but this person has been doing some of the work of furloughed staff. Any help or advice is welcomed. 

Yes this is allowed.

Is it? Are the current employees furloughed because their employment duties being affected by covid, if the employer needs to hire someone else to perform those duties?

It may be allowable in some circumstances, but imo those circumstances would be quite limited. Especially now you can be flexibly furloughed. Originally an employer may have argued they don't have enough work so brought in staff adhoc on low hours. With Flexi furlough, that is no longer applicable. 

If an employee has agreed to be furloughed, there is nothing technically preventing the employer hiring new staff to do exactly the same job. However:

• there are still costs to bear in respect of a furloughed employee, even if they are furloughed at 80%, assuming a CJRS claim is made
• that claim under CJRS could be hard to justify, for the reasons unholyangel mentions

It may be that there are small parts of an existing role of a furloughed employee that are being picked up by the new hire, as said above.

unholyangel

Jeremy535897 said:

unholyangel said:

MattMattMattUK said:

juner53 said:

Can an employer put staff on furlough and then recruit new staff?  The job title is different but this person has been doing some of the work of furloughed staff. Any help or advice is welcomed. 

Yes this is allowed.

Is it? Are the current employees furloughed because their employment duties being affected by covid, if the employer needs to hire someone else to perform those duties?

It may be allowable in some circumstances, but imo those circumstances would be quite limited. Especially now you can be flexibly furloughed. Originally an employer may have argued they don't have enough work so brought in staff adhoc on low hours. With Flexi furlough, that is no longer applicable. 

If an employee has agreed to be furloughed, there is nothing technically preventing the employer hiring new staff to do exactly the same job. However:

• there are still costs to bear in respect of a furloughed employee, even if they are furloughed at 80%, assuming a CJRS claim is made
• that claim under CJRS could be hard to justify, for the reasons unholyangel mentions

It may be that there are small parts of an existing role of a furloughed employee that are being picked up by the new hire, as said above.

So why aren't those small parts being performed by the employees who would normally do them, under flexible furlough? 

As I said, yes there are circumstances it could be allowed. But it's not a blanket "yes it's allowed" as was stated in the first reply.