Pinsent Masons has decided to furlough a group of team administrators and business operations staff. It says that the staff furloughed do not include PAs.
All of those affected will receive 100% of their salaries – 80% via the Government’s job retention scheme and 20% from Pinsent Masons.
Senior partner Richard Foley said: “In light of the Covid-19 pandemic we continue to carefully consider our approach to managing our business. Our key consideration right now, is those employees who, through no fault of their own, are simply not able to carry out their role from home. We need to provide them with immediate assurance as to their roles and salaries and the Government’s furloughing scheme enables us to do just that.
“Having consulted carefully and widely, we have decided to furlough a group of employees who are unable to work at home and to ensure their salaries and benefits remain unaffected.”
A spokesperson for the firm said that they could not comment further at this stage on how many people have been furloughed or why they are unable to work at home.
According to a recent job advert for a team administrator at Pinsent Masons in Glasgow, the role includes maintaining the filing systems – both paper and email based; updating client contact databases; copying, faxing and printing; filling in forms for cashiers and arranging travel and accommodation. Business operations staff
Foley was quoted today (7 April) in Scottish Legal News saying: “Businesses around the world are trading in circumstances that none of us have faced before; we’re no different. We are only making decisions today where we have to. If we can wait to allow those decisions to be better informed by taking them tomorrow we are doing so.
“So, and by way of illustration of decisions made: we have moved to access the UK government’s furloughing scheme for those of our colleagues who, through no fault of their own, are unable to work from home – topping up salaries and benefits; we have issued guidance around the taking of holiday in a timely fashion – for individual well-being and wider businesses reasons; we have issued guidance as to flexible working models that are available to those that are struggling to work at home and manage family and domestic commitments; and we are using scenario planning to help us plan for an uncertain future.
“We have not yet needed to decide the best way to mix the available sources for funding our working capital but we have decided to look at whether a quarterly distribution cycle for the payment our of historic profit remains fit for purpose.”