It’s the holiday season, traditionally a time of joy, partying, traveling and gathering with friends, family and colleagues. But as of December this year, coronavirus numbers are rising globally and employers must follow state and national guidelines and protect their individual workers by determining how to deal with mixes before and after travel.
Plante Moran, with 3,300 employees in 21 national and four international offices, requires each employee to fill out a daily health check-up form and quarantine it at home for seven days when using any form of local transport. When workers meet with people outside of their homes, including when they are driving, the company asks them to stay home for seven days, said Teresa Pollock, managing partner for regional offices in Auburn, Michigan.
Other companies have implemented similar guidelines. When DiCicco, Gulman & Company LLP employees in Boston and Woburn, Massachusetts travel outside of low risk areas, they must work from home for 14 days or have a negative COVID-19 test result within 72 hours of their return coming to the office. “We don’t tell employees they can’t travel, but if they want to travel they must follow government guidelines,” said Dawn Hagman, partner in human resources for the company.
Given the rising COVID-19 numbers when people move indoors in cold-weather states, accounting firms are grappling with how to deal with vacation travel, especially because there is no single roadmap. Each state issues its own rules, some strict and others simply reflecting the rules Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, all of which are updated regularly.
Travel isn’t the only problem either – businesses need to consider gatherings as well. “You can have someone who never leaves Baltimore but has a Thanksgiving dinner with 50 people at a long table,” said Lindsey White, JD, a litigator and partner at a Baltimore-based law firm Shawe Rosenthal LLP.
Employers cannot restrict travel or get-togethers during this holiday season, but without proper protocols, companies could open themselves to liability if an outbreak occurs internally or if customers contract the virus. “Employers have an obligation under OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] to create a safe job, ”said White. “You can and should screen your employees for symptoms, exposure, and any kind of increased risk factors, which can include travel.”
White and HR experts offer the following advice to companies setting guidelines during the holiday season:
Stay up to date on state and CDC travel policies. While there is a lot to be aware of, know your state and CDC regulations for dealing with COVID-19 and then implement the appropriate guidelines. “Each state is treating this pandemic differently, and several states have explicit travel requirements so you may need to be quarantined when traveling to certain states,” White said. “Employers should be aware of country-specific laws.” For example, Maryland has travel advice as opposed to a mandate; Maryland residents who have traveled from the state to a location with a COVID-19 positivity rate greater than 10% or a case rate greater than 20 people per 100,000 in the past seven days should be tested and self-quarantined until the Test results are in, “she said.
Know your rights as an employer. Companies have more rights than they might realize. “Employers can require their employees to report on personal travel, comply with CDC travel restrictions, and comply with relevant state quarantine orders,” White said. She added, however, that some states “have off-duty laws that prohibit employers from taking negative employment measures based on such behavior, which would likely include travel”. Therefore, it is important to read up on these rules of service.
Grassi & Co., a New York-based accounting firm that has been open year-round without incident, monitors employee trips to ensure safety. “People need to tell us when they are out,” said Jeff Agranoff, chief human resources officer and head of recruiting for the company. According to government regulations, Grassi employees must also be quarantined for 14 days or tested three days before and three days after their trip to countries other than neighboring countries. The company also follows CDC guidelines, including mandatory wearing of masks in public areas and quality cleaning procedures to stay open. “I don’t expect a lot of people to travel during the holiday season,” he said.
Employers can also require their workers to take a COVID-19 test after they travel, and they can specify a PCR or polymerase chain reaction test versus a less accurate rapid test, White said. Of course, not all companies will. “We don’t mandate COVID tests, but we do prohibit meeting customers when employees have traveled,” said Pollock of Plante Moran.
Communicate clearly with employees. Maintain an open channel of communication with staff who may ask questions about travel and vacation gatherings. “Make sure you clearly communicate to your staff what expectations are placed on the quarantine process before you travel so they can understand,” Agranoff said.
And when the COVID-19 numbers rise, you should be clear about why your logs are important. “Educate employees so they understand the concerns about what can happen when they travel, not just for the company but for themselves,” he said. “We encourage our people not to leave the state.”
Be consistent but flexible with employees. The levels of risk vary across the country, and in some cases travel or gatherings may be important or necessary. Some employees may have a dying or elderly relative to see, or several children returning home from college. Or your state is a COVID-19 hotbed, which means any human interaction is at risk.
“Give people a little grace,” said Lauren Sanders, director of human resources at the accounting firm Brown Smith Wallace LLP in St. Louis. Missouri had more than 24,000 cases of COVID-19 in the first week of December, according to the CDC Data tracker. “Since Missouri is a hot spot, we have a hard time saying, ‘There’s nowhere to go,” said Sanders. Her company, which stayed open this year but gave employees flexible options to work from home, is also a leader completes daily health questionnaires and requires office workers to be quarantined after international travel or cruises.
However, regardless of your compliance and flexibility policies, make sure you treat everyone equally. “Employers need to consistently apply their rules throughout their workforce,” White said.
Consider the safest options of all. To alleviate worries about vacation travel and gatherings, consider temporarily closing your doors. Grassi plans to close offices around Christmas through Jan. 5 to give employees the opportunity to self-quarantine after the holidays and “stop the spread if someone is exposed,” Agranoff said.
One of the easiest ways to avoid security concerns is to simply insist that employees work from home versus the office, especially if the coronavirus count stays high. “If you are asking employees to stay home and work from home, there really is no problem here,” said White.
For more news and reports on the coronavirus and how CPAs deal with the outbreak-related challenges, please visit the JofAs Coronavirus resource page.
– Cheryl Meyer is a freelance writer based in California. To comment on this article, contact Courtney Vien, a senior editor at JofA at Courtney.Vien@aicpa-cima.com.
