How understanding have your employers been in the current situation?

[Gina]

How understanding are your employers? Are they being super transparent or aren't really communicating with you? Are they allowing paid time-off where needed or haven't allowed any exceptional circumstances? Are they checking in on you or leaving you to it?

What do you wish your employer was/wasn't doing?

[Cerys]

I'm not effected by corona since I'm NHS and would be in full time work regardless. However, since you never specified corona you just said the current situation....my current situation is I've been off on long term sickness since September (bar a few days in January) and in a week I'm hopefully gonna be making another attempt to return to work.

They haven't really kept in contact at all with me, I think I've had 3 phone calls in all that time from them! The only way I know I still have a job is when my payslip comes through haha. But I guess in a way that's a blessing cos I've been given the time and space to try recover.

In regards to corona from what I've heard they've been very understanding with other people, which I guess in our industry you gotta be

[Kyle]

very understanding allowed me to work from home and browse habbox forum, up to 2 weeks full pay sick if we have to isolate and can't reasonably work from home too. Some people are phasing back into work after they have gone overboard with antivirus measures with thermal imaging but I think lots will work from home for the foreseeable

[Ekelektra]

I work in retail so can't work from home. They closed our stores back in March and were pretty good with communication about how we can still get paid and would be expected back but then when they made us come back it's been really frustrating.

Here our wages are being reimbursed by the government and even if we don't do any work we'll still get paid. So our business has had us coming in to clean the stores and do lots of odd jobs but they keep on changing what we're supposed to be doing and not giving a lot of notice. Like last week on Friday they told us we would all have to come in on Tuesday which is frustrating to have so little notice, and that's what it's been like for the past four weeks.

It feels a bit like they're just squeezing out as much free labour as they can because our wages are being reimbursed so they're having us do as much as we can but not enough that they will go over the threshold and have to pay us with their own money. And they make us come in to do all these things to keep us busy, but won't open the stores because they're trying to get their rent reduced by saying they're not making money.

[RichBoiSam]

My work have been excellent throughout this pandemic and I honestly feel so lucky to work with a brilliant company. I couldn't work from home at first because I didn't have a work laptop and instead of forcing me into the office, they told me to stay home without work whilst paying me 100% of wages and that was for a whole month. In the last month, they've allowed us access via remote desktop so I'm back to working full time however they have no plans to put us back in the office anytime soon, even though it would be a lot cheaper for them to do so.

They put out daily communications on the staff intranet and I have daily calls with my managers who also keep us up to date so we always know what's going on. They haven't forced us to use holiday, even when we couldn't work etc.

Overall, they've been amazing and I honestly can't thank them enough.

[sexpot]

I work in retail so can't work from home. They closed our stores back in March and were pretty good with communication about how we can still get paid and would be expected back but then when they made us come back it's been really frustrating.

Here our wages are being reimbursed by the government and even if we don't do any work we'll still get paid. So our business has had us coming in to clean the stores and do lots of odd jobs but they keep on changing what we're supposed to be doing and not giving a lot of notice. Like last week on Friday they told us we would all have to come in on Tuesday which is frustrating to have so little notice, and that's what it's been like for the past four weeks.

It feels a bit like they're just squeezing out as much free labour as they can because our wages are being reimbursed so they're having us do as much as we can but not enough that they will go over the threshold and have to pay us with their own money. And they make us come in to do all these things to keep us busy, but won't open the stores because they're trying to get their rent reduced by saying they're not making money.

sucks to hear that corporate stooges are just as greedy in aus as they are in the usa

[jamiexo]

My work has been fantastic...

We have our weekly staff meetings, and our boss Joe is always offering assistance in case anyone needs it. Before this had started, I was only in the job for 2 or 3 weeks, so I haven't even been completely trained in, but everyone is so helpful if I have questions, and they don't hesitate to set up a video meeting to talk me through things.

I'm also only a temporary employee until I get can get into the full-time position, and originally my end date was supposed to be through May 20th, but my boss had even extended that through September 4th, which was very surprising since the university is making cuts to positions during this time, so I'm VERY thankful.

[dbgtz]

been fine as should be expected
hes generally pretty understanding with most things so not really a huge surprise

[-:Undertaker:-]

Very.

I returned home back to Britain from Spain and we're planning on keeping classes online until September now. A win-win for both of us as I was going to leave before summer anyway, but now I can be home and do my work so I will stick with it for the time being and assess with the economy/travel restrictions what happens.

[Hannah]

Well, in terms of being understanding they've reduced the remaining half of us working's hours by 20% so that they could reduce our salaries the same. They're also looking to furlough more of the staff so that'll be more pressure on us who remain working and covering the furloughed workload. Not exactly equal or fair - and morale has taken a real hit for those of us who are still working above and beyond our original hours.

Secondly, the company has never had a loan in the 80 odd years they've existed - though they have now applied and been approved for their first ever company loan from the bank. They told us all about that - applying, being approved - but I'm not sure where that money has gone or what their intentions were, as they pretty much went silent on it after the approval!

They don't have much in terms of business space overheads as they own their own buildings - no rent. The government are paying half of the salaries of the company, while they're paying 80% of the remaining half salaries.

Income hasn't dwindled that much (that'll hit more in the June - September quarter) which as someone who is a client accountant and observant, along with picking up work from other client accountants, I can see what comes in and what fees we raise and pay and they aren't currently down that dramatically.

If I could suggest they improved things? They could pay full salaries and put our full hours back to those who are actually working so we don't feel like we got the bum deal. That will improve morale. Also, some form of appreciation would be nice every once in a while - and they can stop with the whole 'we are family' thing - 'cause my family wouldn't put me in more debt while expecting me to work even harder.