What happens if your business receives funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and your employees don’t want to return to work?
What’s making them reluctant and how can you resolve that?
Show empathy
There could be several reasons why your employees are not coming back.
In some of those instances, you can use empathy to encourage them to come back.
- If your employee is a parent, it is likely that they have children whose schools are closed until the Fall. In some areas, school has completely moved online until 2021. They may not be coming back to work because they don’t have childcare and they have the responsibility of helping with schoolwork.
- How can your business support this kind of employee so they can transition back into
- work?
- Could you let them work part-time while they sort out their childcare situation?
- Or is it possible to have them bring their child into work under certain conditions?
- It is hard for anyone to live through this type of global event and not be affected by it. And because everyone deals with traumatic events differently, it’s important to find out how the events during this pandemic have affected employees. They may have lost a loved one to COVID-19. Perhaps they have tested positive for COVID-19. Your employee may be having a hard time coping and this may be affecting their ability to come into work. In this case, you could show empathy by redirecting employees to helpful mental health resources while supporting their return to work.
Do your due diligence
It is important to research why an employee might not be returning to work beyond speaking to them. In some instances, because these individuals are receiving unemployment income that pays them more than their job would, they are choosing not to come into work.
Even companies that are not receiving PPP funds are facing this issue.
Here are two things you can point out to such an individual:
- By law, they are committing fraud. If a person is able to work but is not willing to because they are receiving unemployment payments, you can report them to the State of California Employment Development Department.
- Eventually, the unemployment funds will run out. If they choose to stay at home because they are receiving money from the government (and not because they have a legitimate reason why they cannot work), they could also lose their jobs. That is a double loss for them.
These two pointers can get an employee to return; even if they do so reluctantly.
Making sure you meet the headcount for PPP
Even with these suggestions, it’s likely some employees may not return to work.
The Small Business Administration (SBA) will forgive loans if all employees are kept on payroll for 8 weeks and the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest or utilities.
If you can’t get all your employees to return, we recommend you start hiring quickly to replace those workers so that you can meet the requirements for PPP loan forgiveness.
A plan to reopen and rehire quickly is the best way to make the most of your PPP funds and ensure that the loan will be forgiven.