7 Steps To Rehiring Employees During COVID-19

In the last number of weeks we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of businesses opening their doors and bringing their employees back to work. Employers need to make a real effort to ensure that they’re up to date with not only the latest public health advice from the government, but also the most recent changes to the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme that were introduced by Revenue.

Maybe you’re a business in the retail or services industries and are having to make significant changes to premises and workflows to minimise the risk of COVID-19. Or perhaps you're a business in other industries where, although you’re back to work, all of your employees will continue to work from home for the foreseeable future. No matter what industry your business is in, there are certain implications of rehiring employees that all employers will need to understand. That’s why we’ve broken them down for you. 

7 Steps To Rehiring Employees 

Where an employee previously laid off has been re-hired, the employee will qualify for the Wage Subsidy Scheme if their DEASP claim is ceased. However, employees must have had a pay date in February and have been included in submissions between the 1st of February 2020 and the 30th of March 2020 in order to qualify.

If you’re planning to rehire employees as you reopen your business, you’ll need to take the following steps to ensure the employees are rehired correctly in line with Revenue requirements:

1. If the laid off employee was ceased on the payroll, and the employer now wishes to place this employee back on payroll to avail of the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme, the employer can create a new employment for the employee with the same PPS number and a different Employment ID and apply the scheme for this employee. 
   
   
2. To be included in the updated Employer CSV file (also known as TWSS file), employers must ensure that the rehired employees are on the payroll and an RPN has been received by Revenue the day before the employer calculates and submits the first payroll payment for the rehired employees to Revenue.
   
   
3. A daily refresh of the Employer CSV file will include the employee information for rehired employees notified to Revenue. It’s important to note that rehired employees between 2nd May and 17th May, were temporarily not included in the first batch of Employer CSV files that were made available. Revenue have since updated the Employer CSV files to include rehired employees that were notified to Revenue during this period.
   
   
4. Employers will receive a notification when an updated Employer CSV file is available for download, including when an employee’s information has changed due to a rehire in another employment. Where relevant, this Revenue instruction file must be downloaded from ROS again and re-imported into the payroll software.
   
   
5. For pay frequencies other than weekly, employers should consider placing these rehired employees on a weekly pay frequency to simplify the alignment with the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme payments and to prevent overlaps with the Pandemic Unemployment Payment that may trigger a DEASP overpayment situation for the employee.
   
   
6. Where this is not practical and the employee is rehired mid-month, the employer may submit a payroll submission using their normal payroll frequency. Revenue will refund the employer for the entire payroll frequency for the employee and the employer must retain the excess subsidy refund and this will be taken into consideration during the reconciliation process.
   
   
7. An employee being rehired after a period on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment should cease their payments immediately and repay DEASP any amount to which they were no longer entitled.
   
   

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