'It shines a bad light on the channel' - resellers blasted for making furloughed staff work

Channel firms are being lambasted by their peers and industry figures for forcing their furloughed staff to continue working.

Under the Job Retention Scheme, the government will pay 80 per cent of a furloughed employee's salary, provided the employee does no work at all for their employer in that time. To do so would be tantamount to fraud.

However, in recent days the issue of people being forced to work despite being placed on furlough has been highlighted as recruiters and resellers took to LinkedIn to chastise those who are allowing their staff to continue to work despite being on furlough.

Jamie Bailey, MD of Leeds-based HP and Webroot partner Invest IT, has had recruiters tell him of the practice as well as seeing it firsthand on social media with people he knows to be on furlough.  

"In our experience, it's been business as usual - if not busier - so if other resellers are doing this, it's embarrassing to be even associated with the industry when people are acting like this at a time when we should all be working together," he stated.

"It's frustrating because we've not closed our doors, we've not furloughed any staff and that's the bit I can't really understand. If you're in the IT industry now you should be busier than ever with remote users, but more and more customers have told me they're getting messages from people on LinkedIn offering their services, but they're furloughed.

"I'm still targeting new business and if I'm coming up against a competitor, I want it to be a genuine competitor, not somebody who's not really got anything to lose; if they don't get the deal, they'll still get paid, if I don't get the deal, I don't get paid."

Bailey said that some of the biggest resellers are among the culprits, though he declined to give names, saying only that he was confused that a start-up company like Invest IT can win opportunities and keep its staff working through the crisis, but bigger resellers are unable to do the same.

"It seems to be the bigger the company, the more it seems to be heard of," he continued.

"If the smaller companies like ourselves are picking up work, then the big resellers in the channel - who will have thousands of customers on their books - if they're saying they're not busy enough and they have to furlough staff then yes take advantage of the government scheme.

"But if they're able to work and generate new business and carry on as normal, they shouldn't be taking advantage, it's only going to cripple the economy even more."

This fraudulent practice is not exclusive to the IT sector, either.

HMRC confirmed to Sky News yesterday that it had received 795 reports from workers worried about the Job Retention Scheme and whistleblower support charities have seen a "significant" number of calls.

Zoe Chatley, associate partner a recruiter Wallace Hine Selection, has been fielding queries from concerned IT employees who are faced with complying with the fraudulent practice or losing their job. She said the majority of those getting in touch are "experienced" channel salespeople.

She advised one person in such a dilemma to keep a paper trail of all communication about the matter.

"I asked him if he had a paper trail of what they are asking him to do, so that if anything went sour, he had a backup and the evidence to show that he was being asked to do something illegal," she explained.

"I advised him to try and stick his job out as long as he could because the market obviously isn't great at the moment. I don't want candidates to resign and lose any money that they're earning right now because we just don't know how quickly they'll be able to get a new job.

"It's such a difficult position for them to be in and all I can say to them is that, ‘you need to do what's best for you, but what they are asking you to do is illegal'. I think some of the candidates have decided to choose work because they don't want to risk losing their jobs."

She said that it "speaks volumes" about the companies participating in the trend and advised any furloughed employee put in such a spot by their employer to investigate whether they have a union rep or any relevant trade bodies that can provide them with support. She also advised companies to remain transparent with their workforce.

"You want to be able to look back on this and say ‘we did a great job, we looked after our staff' and it really challenges the integrity of the employer," she said.

"These days employer branding is so important and for those companies who are demanding that their staff work through furlough, it makes them look greedy.

"They need to be questioning their morals as a business; at the end of the day, there are so many companies out there that are doing things correctly and those are the ones that will come out shining at the end. And the ones that aren't are putting their reputation on the line."

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• Topics
• Reseller
• Reseller
• furlough
• Recruitment