covid quarantine now over

hi, we have a property manager and employee who "may" have been incontact with a person who did test positive for covid.
in the abundance of caution, the employee and property manager were instructed to quarantine at home for 14 days.

they were also supposed to go get tested immediately. Neither employee bothered to get tested. When questioned a week later, one employee finally went and got tested. Results are not back.
neither employee got sick.. both employees during that 14 day quarantine said they were tired, or maybe felt feverish. Neither employee got around to getting a thermometer.

14 days is up.. it's actually 16 days since the employees were around the person who eventually tested positive.

one of the employees came back to work as soon as the cdc recommendation allowed.

the other employee , suddenly on the day she was supposed to come back to work, said she felt feverish()still no thermometer)

I have no problem with the employee if she wants to stay home. we have allowed her to answer the phones and do her best from home.

however, this is the property manager, they are brand new.. She is excellent when she was here. She is very thorough etc. However. after 14 days of answering phones from home, several things have happened that would not have happened if she were back on property. however.. cdc recommendations were being followed.

the job description for the property manager clearly states onsite property manger. with hours and days of the week they are on site. Owners pay the salary for someone to be be onsite, overseeing things along with their other duties.

Can the board just decide to let the property manger continue to work from home and get paid? I don't think this is right. If the person wants to stay home , I have no problem with that. I have a problem with paying someone to do job that largely requires being present.

If it was a privately owned business, the owner could pay their employee to show up or not. however.. this is a non profit hoa,, the board is spending other peoples money..

opinions.?

Tests are probably available now - the employee should be tested.

No thermometers? What nonsense.

thank you for your responses..

the concern i have is that. it seems very fishy that after 14 full days of working from home and getting paid,, the day she is supposed to come to work she says she feels feverish.

yes for the past two weeks, in which she was supposed to be quarantined and monitoring her temperature,, she didn't bother to get a thermometer

she can not do most of her job from home.. she can do some of her job from home.. which is better than nothing,, but is not acceptable ,in my opinion.

however.. several board members are tripping all over themselves to tell me about the covid fatalities and how we must pray for the world..

i'm like,," people.. i'm not saying not to pay attention and follow social distancing.. i'm saying,, without a confirmed positive test. ,, and 14 days of required quarantine,, yet she didn't get a thermometer.

I believe if an employee didn't do their part during the quarantine,, they don't get to continue to work from home and do half the job.

You act like this is a "Want" to stay home in quarantine. My job we are facing this situation now. We had a positive. Everyone got sent home except those deemed mission essential. That time period is now over. The positive employee is now better and no longer sick. However, they just issued another 30 days of quarantine if you recall nationwide. So it looks like another 30 days per the law. We are all still on work from home orders but allowed to come into work for short periods of time. Just enough to get things we have to be onsite for.

In this case, you can't really enforce the "onsite" rule if the site is unsafe or they are unsafe to be onsite. The virus doesn't care whom it infects or how. It doesn't follow any kind of social standards. EVERY HUMAN BEING ON EARTH IS ILLEGIBLE TO GET THE VIRUS. NO ONE IS IMMUNE FROM GETTING IT!!! Until you actually get the virus and get over it, you are very much able to get and spread the virus. Why would you enforce anyone who may have it to be onsite?

Our state is so far behind in testing that it's really not even worth getting the test. Some people have waited for 12 days now to get test results. You can't even get tested unless you have symptoms. Even a doctor's note isn't getting you a test without symptoms. The only thing they tell you to do is just choose to stay home for 14 days and wait it out. Go to the hospital if you can't breathe.

I was technically exposed to the person who was positive. The person was sick for a week and told by a doctor it was just "allergies". her friend convinced her to get a test. It came out positive after another week to get results. Luckily, I wasn't in direct contact with the person but in the area they worked. I still would not have qualified to gotten a test. We just got sent home to self quarantine. So far I've been self-quarantined for about a month now. Do I get the clear to go back to work? Yes I do take my temperature.

Good advice.

Bottom line . . . flexibility is key . . . if you want her to still be your manager when all this blows through, then work with her and figure out ways the majority of her work can be done from home. Whatever can't get done from home . . . unless it's life-and-death . . . then forget about it for a while. If you don't care if she's around after it all, then get rid of her now and you won't have to pay anyone.

Also, the CDC has recommended quarantine process with temperature monitoring and other requirements that should be followed.

Also, after a couple of days of her saying she has no thermometer . . . perhaps someone should have given her one or gone out to buy her one.

hi, I want to clarify.

Texas has a stay at home mandate for NON ESSENTIAL BUSINESSES.

Property maintenance and management is one of the categories listed as essential businesses.

She was offered a thermometer and turned it down 9 days ago saying she would make sure and get one that day.

so the issue is,, her job does not qualify as stay at home. On site property maintenance and oversight as well as the weekly property report etc can not be done from home.

She has been answering phones and giving instructions to the mainteance staff. .. However. after 2 weeks of being gone. More and more issues are piling up.

We do absolutely want her . However. we also want her to come back to work now.

several board members think she is doing fine from home. (non resident board members)
several residents and a a resident board member are asking why she isn't back. And it's raising eyebrows that the other employee that was around the positive tested person for 5 minutes is back to work already.

I DONT WANT TO FIRE HER. I want her to come back to the office. Obviously the employees are all practicing social distancing and wearing ppe.

The property manager has an office. They don't work in close proximity to anyone else..

But I get it..based on everyone's responses I'm being an ass, i need to be more flexible. etc.

After reading all the feedback , I am going to apologize to the manager and tell her I was too harsh and I look forward to her return when she feels 100%..

I am assuming she works for a management company, right. It so, it is their call, not yours.

I am stuck in California so I am helping my daughter with the management company. I set it so that outside of onsite inspections, it can be run from any spot in the world with a internet connection. With GoToMeeting, it is even more efficient.

I had been a Board president, so as long as assessments come in, bills paid, emergencies handled, I ma good. And to the Lt Governor of Texas who has no problem sacrificing the elderly for the economy a big F off. If this goes on for 18 months in the current state, god or someone, help this country.

You believe her job is essential. Please explain to me how her job is really essential in your eyes. I can't understand how some reports are essential. I said in an earlier post this situation requires flexibility I should have added common sense. Would you really want your mother, daughter, son, or any other loved one to go to work for property management? In these times you are not going to get 100 percent we are going to limp through and rebound but for now we are all getting less than we were 2 months ago and probably less than we want.

Given our current situation, I would give this employee the benefit of the doubt. You don't want to expose the rest of your community unessisarily. I understand that this is frustrating but it is not permanent. If another two weeks pass and she is still unable to come in, then the board could have a meeting about how to proceed.

Laska, is this woman a direct employee of your HOA? Or does she work for an MC?

Is the woman a licensed property mgr., or not?

Is she the same one who said soemoneon your promises keyed her car, etc.? Or do I have you mixed up with some other poster?

Btw, our PM & her asst. mgr. are on our premises 40 hours a week as in CA their work is considered "essential." Their office doors are closed and we all know not to try to see them face-to-face.

markw18 .. no our manager is a direct employee of the our hoa.

Augustine. ,, I wasn't outright accusing her of faking , but in effect, It certainly came across as questioning her truthfulness. This was wrong of me. I worked very hard to build the support of the board to get rid of the previous manager. It took a long time. I'm thrilled with her work so far. I just want her back on property. I felt it was rather lame to extend her work from home time based on feeling"feverish" when she has been home for 14 days and temperature is one of the main things that the cdc recommends monitoring.. Yet , she didn't get a thermometer. Plus, She was offered a brand new thermometer 8 days ago and turned it down.

Anyway, I've apologized to her. I cc'd the board. I was being a little harsh wanting her to come back now that the 14 days work from home is over. we'll see what happens monday. Hopefully she will be in the office.

I share Gerge's questions. And wonder--have you been asking her every day if she has a thermometer?

The employee has served excellently during normal times so I'd not question the PM if she wants to work from home. The PM, if in the office, would technically be forced into personal interactions w/ everyone living in the community while the everyone in the community is staying away from each other.

A property manager and management office would be the LAST thing I'd want open, daily, in a tight community if compromised operations can keep things to a modest "limping" operation.