[Ireland] ‘Massive issues’ for employers and employees from long COVID

Long COVID is currently impacting the lives of hundreds of people in Ireland. With an increasing number of workplaces now working towards a return to ‘normal’, employment and HR experts say it has the potential to cause “massive issues” for employers and employees too, BreakingNews.ie reports.

There are still more unknowns than knowns when it comes to long COVID, it affects people in very different ways.

Dublin-based employment law solicitor Richard Grogan and Andy Davies - of HR company MHR International - explored some of the issues that long COVID could present in the workplace with BreakingNews.ie.

Mr Davies has studied the impact of long COVID on UK businesses, he said the uncertainty around the condition is the biggest challenge.

“Long COVID in itself is unknown, and I think that’s the biggest part of the problem. Both employers, employees and medical people are still trying to get to grips with what long COVID is, what it looks like. There’s an understanding of some of the symptoms but what that means in terms of business and as an employer is yet to be determined.

“With this staggered return to work we’ve had, some places are only now getting people back into offices, and it’s only now that we’re going to see the impact of long COVID at work.

“People are going through confusion at the moment as to what it is and how to deal with it. It’s fair to say that HR teams and employers should be looking at this and probably treating it with the same regard as a disability, saying ‘what reasonable adjustments do we need to make for people to come back to work?’”

Mr Grogan said that whether long COVID is classed as a disability or not will be a key decision.

“COVID is going to present massive issues for employers, long COVID being the first,” he explained.

“The first question we have with that is, is long COVID going to be classed as a disability? If it’s classified as a disability then employers are going to have to look at the issue of reasonable accommodation, the legal phrase, to accommodate somebody in those circumstances from an equality point of view.

“That does not mean giving them a new job, it means looking at how their job can be reconfigured to take that issue into account. There’s going to be issues there, including whether they’ll have to look at remote work for somebody suffering with long COVID, how can the job be reallocated to take account of their position?

“It’s not going to be as difficult for someone in an office environment, but it’s going to be massive for somebody who is a manual worker, generally speaking, it’s not possible to reallocate work for them, that’s the difficulty.

“The next issue is going to be how long do you keep a job open? To dismiss an employee in those situations the employer has to get the employee medically examined, and they have to get a prognosis as to when they’re likely to be able to return to work fully. That again is going to be a difficulty because nobody knows how far down the line long COVID will last. They’re the two big issues coming in with that.”

Mr Davies said understanding will be the most important thing for employers when their workers are struggling with long COVID.

“Businesses need to look at the impact this is going to have, at some point it may impact their productivity, it’s about how do they mitigate that. What do they put in place to lessen the impact of it? Revised working arrangements may be one of those mitigations, but it’s certainly something employers need to start looking at now.

“One of the key things is talking to people, especially if they haven’t yet fully returned to work or are working in a hybrid manner, which in some ways may be masking some of those symptoms because how people are working can do that. It may be when they return to the office the symptoms may become more prevalent, and it may be more obvious to people that they’re suffering.

“Employers need to treat reports of sickness from any employee carefully and with empathy, care and understanding, it doesn’t matter what it is.

“HR teams throughout the world need to really understand what long COVID means, the available research on it, in order to have empathetic conversations around it.”

Long COVID is currently impacting the lives of hundreds of people in Ireland. With an increasing number of workplaces now working towards a return to ‘normal’, employment and HR experts say it has the potential to cause “massive issues” for employers and employees too, BreakingNews.ie reports.

There are still more unknowns than knowns when it comes to long COVID, it affects people in very different ways.

Dublin-based employment law solicitor Richard Grogan and Andy Davies - of HR company MHR International - explored some of the issues that long COVID could present in the workplace with BreakingNews.ie.

Mr Davies has studied the impact of long COVID on UK businesses, he said the uncertainty around the condition is the biggest challenge.

“Long COVID in itself is unknown, and I think that’s the biggest part of the problem. Both employers, employees and medical people are still trying to get to grips with what long COVID is, what it looks like. There’s an understanding of some of the symptoms but what that means in terms of business and as an employer is yet to be determined.

“With this staggered return to work we’ve had, some places are only now getting people back into offices, and it’s only now that we’re going to see the impact of long COVID at work.

“People are going through confusion at the moment as to what it is and how to deal with it. It’s fair to say that HR teams and employers should be looking at this and probably treating it with the same regard as a disability, saying ‘what reasonable adjustments do we need to make for people to come back to work?’”

Mr Grogan said that whether long COVID is classed as a disability or not will be a key decision.

“COVID is going to present massive issues for employers, long COVID being the first,” he explained.

“The first question we have with that is, is long COVID going to be classed as a disability? If it’s classified as a disability then employers are going to have to look at the issue of reasonable accommodation, the legal phrase, to accommodate somebody in those circumstances from an equality point of view.

“That does not mean giving them a new job, it means looking at how their job can be reconfigured to take that issue into account. There’s going to be issues there, including whether they’ll have to look at remote work for somebody suffering with long COVID, how can the job be reallocated to take account of their position?

“It’s not going to be as difficult for someone in an office environment, but it’s going to be massive for somebody who is a manual worker, generally speaking, it’s not possible to reallocate work for them, that’s the difficulty.

“The next issue is going to be how long do you keep a job open? To dismiss an employee in those situations the employer has to get the employee medically examined, and they have to get a prognosis as to when they’re likely to be able to return to work fully. That again is going to be a difficulty because nobody knows how far down the line long COVID will last. They’re the two big issues coming in with that.”

Mr Davies said understanding will be the most important thing for employers when their workers are struggling with long COVID.

“Businesses need to look at the impact this is going to have, at some point it may impact their productivity, it’s about how do they mitigate that. What do they put in place to lessen the impact of it? Revised working arrangements may be one of those mitigations, but it’s certainly something employers need to start looking at now.

“One of the key things is talking to people, especially if they haven’t yet fully returned to work or are working in a hybrid manner, which in some ways may be masking some of those symptoms because how people are working can do that. It may be when they return to the office the symptoms may become more prevalent, and it may be more obvious to people that they’re suffering.

“Employers need to treat reports of sickness from any employee carefully and with empathy, care and understanding, it doesn’t matter what it is.

“HR teams throughout the world need to really understand what long COVID means, the available research on it, in order to have empathetic conversations around it.”