Hourly Employees during COVID 19

I know this isn't a huge help but check your state unemployment laws. They may be relaxing them for COVID-19 hour reductions so that hourly staff can still get paid.

- Chris

In our case, we're working from home until April and I have a part time person on my staff. We're paying them regardless of whether they work or not. The decision to have them work was left up to the supervisor so in my case I asked my part timer to keep working so we could keep up on work, through I'm sure our work flow will slow down. 

My theatre shut down public assembly, but not operations, as of now.

We have no way to know how long this will last.  I am preparing for multiple scenarios by creating contingency staffing plans for variations including:

• keeping all staff but reducing everyone's hours by a scale-able amount
• laying off all part time staff, keeping only full time
• laying off some part time staff, keeping all full time
• laying off all part time staff, reducing full time staff hours (paid hourly)
• laying off a small number of part time staff and keeping all remaining staff at their usual number of hours

Meanwhile, I was in a hiring process for 2 new employees, and had a third one shift into training.  All of this has been suspended, with the hopes I can pick back up in a reasonable amount of time.

I've also had proactive conversations with all members of the team, so they know these things are possibilities.  I'm asking folks to be frank with me about their financial situation so I can balance the needs of the company with my ability to "do right" by the staff.  We are also distributing staff, some to work remote and some to work on site.  There's a concern if one goes down sick, we'll all go together.  My box office supervisor and I are intentionally keeping separate, one home one on site, so there's a better chance one of the department leaders will remain healthy.