Staying Safe
Please see the guidance note ‘Staying Safe’ to help manage your health and wellbeing during this difficult time.
Working on Campus
From 15 to 28 March all on-campus teaching is suspended.
BUE will maintain sufficient staff on campus and working remotely from home to ensure full support for students and other vital services. Deans and Heads of Administrative Departments will decide on staffing levels within their area taking into account operational needs, whether work can be carried out from home and other issues (e.g. staff with underlying health issues and caring responsibilities).
Group Gatherings
As a precaution, BUE has temporarily suspended all unnecessary group gatherings both on and off campus. These include meetings, committees, staff training, parties, concerts, conferences and field trips. Please respect this requirement for the safety of the BUE community.
The BUE Academic Calendar will be reviewed and key committees will be moved to a later date.
If meetings or group gatherings do need to take place, please practice social distancing (see Guidance Note on Staying Safe). To facilitate this, choose a room or event space large enough to prevent crowding for the expected attendance.
Working from Home
The two week period when teaching is suspended on campus is not a holiday. Employees who are not ill are expected to work either on or off campus.
If your manager agrees that you can work from home for some or part of the working week, you will be expected to be available to respond to email and phone calls during normal BUE working hours.
Managers and supervisors, including faculty who supervise staff, must not pressure staff to come to work if they are ill or need to stay at home to care for dependents. Conversely, if employees are well, they should not be pressured to stay away from work unless there is a legitimate reason for them to do so in order to comply with government or BUE requirements.
If you feel ill
Please follow the guidelines on ‘Staying Safe’ to minimise the chances of you and others catching or passing on Covid-19.
If you feel ill you MUST stay at home until you have been symptom-free for at least 24 hours. If you have any of the symptoms of the virus, including a high temperature, persistent headache or persistent cough, you must self-isolate for 14 days and not return to work until you have been symptom-free for at least 24 hours.
If you are ill or intend to self-isolate you must inform your line manager immediately. Sickness approval should be obtained from the BUE clinics AFTER return to work after any periods of virus-like illness or self-isolation to avoid attending the campus when unwell.
BUE will be reviewing staff attendance requirements to ensure staff are fairly treated during this period.
Travel
From Thursday 18 March 2020 there will no flights in or out of Egypt for 14 days. As a result all business-related travel is cancelled with immediate effect and we will keep this under review until the situation improves.
If you are considering travel for personal reasons inside Egypt in the next few weeks, please consider whether that travel can be postponed until the situation improves.