Close and Casual Contacts - Rules

The borders have now fully opened up and we are now in a new stage of dealing with COVID –unfortunately just in time for the highly contagious Omicron variant to arrive and increase infection rates.

Close and Casual Contact –State by State

Unhelpfully each state government has introduced their own state specific responses.The timing and location for your event will be very important due to the changing requirements of each state.

Here is a state-by-state quick reference guide to assist you in understanding the requirements for your next event. *Please note due to the rapidly changing nature of such responses the guide may be superseded by new rules so check the relevant state public health website for clarification.

Is Personal/ Sick Leave payable when an employee is required to self-isolate because of public health requirements?

A close contact required to self-isolate etc but who is NOT sick or presenting COVID symptoms technically is NOT entitled to access Personal/ Sick Leave because they won’t meet the usual notification and evidentiary requirements of incapacity.

But an employee who is sick or presenting COVID symptoms AND is also required to self-isolate etc is entitled to access Personal/ Sick Leave just like they would for any other incapacity subject to meeting the usual notification and evidentiary requirements.

So, employers have to make a ‘call’.Some employers have said they will pay employees Personal Leave regardless -but then some employees complain that they have had to use their Personal Leave when not sick –and don’t want to use their Annual leave or LSL either.In such circumstances, (if you can find alternative duties) the best means is to simply provide alternative duties or training or professional developments activities from home (eg training modules or even creating training materials for others to use).

BUT if you can’t find alternative duties you have to either pay your employees as normal, ask them to access their Annual Leave’ LSL or have ‘the fight’ regarding the non-payment of Personal/ Sick Leave.

Other examples that businesses have successfully implemented include:

1. nominate ‘risky travel zones’ and proactively consult with your employees clearly advising ‘up front’ that the employer won’t provide paid Personal/ Sick Leave if employees are required to isolate by Government mandate after travelling to a ‘risky travel zone’ and there are no alternative duties that they can perform.;

2. provide additional Pandemic Leave for employees who are vaccinated; and

3. make applications for Annual Leave to ‘risky travel zones’ conditional upon specific ‘return testing’ requirements for the individual eg period of isolation and testing PLUS any other reasonable control measures eg temperature testing, mask wearing etc

Again, the test of what is ‘reasonable’ will depend on your particular workplace.A risk assessment and proper consultation will provide the best guidance of the way forward.