At this time of the year employers find themselves faced more often than usual with sick employees absent due to flu infections. Many employers try to limit the number of flu cases among their staff by offering them the opportunity to get a flu vaccination at the employer’s expense. Employers in education are among them. Against this background, the Payroll Tax Expert Group considered the question of whether all employers in the education sector could apply the specific exemption for occupational health and safety facilities to provide the workforce with a free flu jab or reimburse the cost of such.
The Expert Group’s opinion can be summarised as: no. When employers in education provide or reimburse the cost of a flu vaccination to all employees on request this does not fall under the specific exemption for health and safety facilities. Under certain circumstances, however, the specific exemption could apply.
The Expert Group further indicated that if the flu jab is administered at the workplace, the zero valuation for employment benefits provided at the workplace will apply.
The specific exemption for health and safety facilities applies when a provision is directly related to the employer’s obligations under or pursuant to the Working Conditions Act. The employer must be able to demonstrate that this is so. In the opinion of the Expert Group, this means that for each health and safety facility it must be demonstrated that:
“This serves to combat or prevent health and safety risks associated with the work and, given the present level of scientific understanding, professional services and occupational hygiene strategy, may be reasonably required of the employer (in a given situation).
Because in this case all the education staff employed by an education employer can get a flu jab at their employer’s expense, the Expert Group considers it insufficiently likely that this provision serves to combat or prevent health and safety risks associated with the work carried out by these people in education. In these situations the individual employer will therefore have to show that there is a risk associated with the work based on the specific circumstances. This can be done by demonstrating that as a result of small classrooms, poor ventilation facilities and being in contact with pupils who, in practice, often carry the flu virus, for example, there is a risk for that employee or group of employees of contracting flu. The input of a medical officer or occupational hygienist may be helpful in this situation.
This opinion was about a flu jab, but even with other similar preventive health and safety measures it is always advisable to record before granting the allowance or provision why, in the employer’s view, it is reasonable to assume that a health or safety risk associated with the work will be removed in this way.