Speaking during TTG’s second Keep Your Business Alive seminar, Joanna Chatterton, partner at business lawyers Fox Williams, said furloughing and pay cuts needed “express” agreement from staff.

However, she added: “In most cases, employees have accepted the changes as a better alternative to having no job at all; but there is the possibility that they could challenge them if they are imposed without agreement.”

Chatterton said HMRC’s latest advice was that written agreement was required, although this had not been a previous stipulation. 

Piecemeal development of rules had created issues around things like holiday entitlement, she said, with HMRC answering queries like this via tweets.

Clients were also worried about managing productivity using a remote workforce, she said, warning that issues around childcare could potentially give rise to discrimination claims.

The return to work also brought issues around testing, wearing facemasks and whether employers can ask about an employee’s medical history.

Chatterton warned the issues would not end there. “Our expectation is that once the furlough scheme ends, many businesses are going to have to think about restructuring and redundancies because normal levels of business are going to take quite a while to come back on stream.”