FAQs August 2023
What financial support is available for people who test positive with Covid-19?
What can I do if my employee tests positive with Covid-19?
What do I pay my employee if they have Covid-19?
Immunocompromised employees are anxious about coming to work, what should I do?
Can I still ask vaccination status on application forms?
Can I still hold the vaccination records of my staff?
We have a Covid-19 policy; what do we do?
Removal of mandates
As of 12:01am 15 August 2023, all Covid-19 mandates have been lifted by the government.
This means there is no longer any requirement to self isolate or adhere to other protocols, such as wearing masks in healthcare facilities. It is worth noting, while not mandated the Ministry of Health guidance is to stay at home for five days if you’re unwell or have tested positive.
What financial support is available for people who test positive with Covid-19?
The removal of Covid restrictions also means that the financial support , previously provided by the government has ended. This includes the Leave Support Scheme and any other Covid related subsidies they previously provided.
What can I do if my employee tests positive with Covid-19?
As with anyone displaying symptoms of being unwell, you are able to direct an employee to not work while unwell; as often working when sick can make symptoms worse and affect team productivity. In the case of Covid you might ask they return a negative RAT test before returning to work.
While you may encourage your employee(s) to isolate for 5 days, isolation is no longer compulsory meaning it cannot be enforced. If you/they choose to attend work when sick, please consider using appropriate personal protective equipment.
What do I pay my employee if they have Covid-19?
Any time not worked due to Covid-19 is to be treated as sick leave.
If your employee is able to work from home, sick leave would only apply to the time they were not able to work.
If your employee does not have sick leave available to them, and you have directed them not to attend work while sick, payment as a gesture of good faith can be made. This could be treated as payment of sick leave in advance of entitlement.
Immunocompromised employees are anxious about coming to work, what should I do?
These are valid feelings and a fair response for many people. Offer EAP if you have it, and discuss these feelings with your employee.
Some good questions to ask are:
- What would make you feel more comfortable?
- Are there any changes to work I can make to make you feel less anxious?
- Is there anything I can do to support?
- It's a good opportunity to remind people of public health measures and good hygiene/cleaning measures to ease anxieties and make all employees feel safe.
Vaccination requirements
The threshold for making vaccination compulsory has been incredibly high since introduction of COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021, and we anticipate will become even higher with the lifting of mandates.
If you think a particular worker or group of workers needs to be vaccinated to complete specific duties on health and safety grounds, you must undertake a Covid-19 exposure risk assessment.
When carrying out this assessment, you’ll need to consider:
- The likelihood of workers being exposed to Covid-19 while performing the role.
- Whether you can provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) to mitigate this exposure.
- The potential consequences of that exposure, e.g. community transmission.
- The WorkSafe website has more detailed guidance on risk assessments if you consider this appropriate in your business.
Can I still ask vaccination status on application forms?
In short, no as there is no longer any mandated legal framework for requesting this information.
The exception to this being if you have completed a risk assessment determining vaccination compulsory in your business.
Can I still hold the vaccination records of my staff?
No; under the Privacy Act, you are only able to retain information for the purposes it was originally obtained.
We have a Covid-19 policy; what do we do?
Unless you have completed a new risk assessment and determined this policy is still warranted, you will need to remove this from your policy suite.
Contact the MyHR team to discuss how to best consult with your team to remove.
For further information visit https://covid19.govt.nz/