NZ businesses looking at how they'd deal with a potential coronavirus outbreak

The virus is likely to affect Kiwis who can’t work from home.

As the number of coronavirus cases around the world continues to grow, businesses are looking at how they would deal with a potential outbreak.

Wellington-based personal trainer Laurent Pang owns his own gym, but after taking a family trip to China he had to self-isolate at home for two weeks.

He says being forced to work from home made him think about what effect a potential outbreak would have on the business.

“If we weren't allowed to be in contact with people face to face the business would suffer”, he says.

“The three main things we do is nutrition, personal training and massage, massage would be off so that’s a third of our income gone, personal training would at least halve at the start.”

“There’d be a big impact on the money we're bringing in and we’d still be paying rent for this place so it stacks up.”

This week Twitter announced it's strongly encouraging all of its employees to work from home, and New Zealand's Director General of Public Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says government agencies here are looking into it too.

“That’s one of the things everyone is looking at, every government agency as part of their business continuity plan,” Dr Bloomfield said.

The Council of Trade Unions says it’s particularly concerned about people on casual contracts in industries like hospitality and retail.

“Workers who are casual or contractors don't tend to have many rights, they will be effectively punished by staying away from work by losing wages, that for us is a real concern because when people have to pay bills they’re much more likely to show up to work sick and break quarantine.”

Blair Scotland, a partner at Dundas Street Employment Lawyers, says depending on how government reacts to coronavirus, issues over leave and pay “could be very difficult”.

“Generally, if it’s the employer requiring the person to stay away, the employer has to keep paying the employee. If it's governmental agency, the Ministry of Health however let’s say it’s the Ministry of Health, that may mean employees aren't entitled to be paid.”

Mr Scotland said the key for employers is to be flexible.

Mr Wagstaff says if the coronavirus threat in New Zealand became more severe, lessons could be learned from previous international crises.

“If businesses are struggling to maintain themselves and can’t keep working, then we need to find other solutions," he says.

“We worked on things like this during the global financial crisis, we looked ideas like a four days week with fifth day topped up from a benefit and things like that.”

“From our point of view there’s a lot to learn from that time and we certainly think there’s a place for a discussion with business, government and unions to figure out what options there are to maintain people’s income and maintain businesses.”

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