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In-house counsel should consider what their employees are allowed to do while working from home when creating a re-exit plan as cases for the new coronavirus spike again and companies prepare for a second wave of the virus.

According to data gathered by Gartner Legal and Compliance in May and June, only 3% of in-house counsel indicated their companies have a re-exit plan finalized. More than half, at 53%, of respondents said they are in the middle of working on a re-exit plan.

"The first critical thing that any in-house lawyer dealing with this needs to understand is that they're going to be making decisions on imperfect information," Jonathan Segal, partner and managing principal at Duane Morris in Philadelphia, said.

The guidance from different state governments are changing on an almost weekly basis and in-house counsel should create broad plans that can change as quickly as the health guidances change. Just this week states that were on the path to reopening have put stringent restrictions on travel and amended how indoor businesses operate. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday required employees to work from home if they could. Earlier in the week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed restrictions on indoor businesses.

In-house counsel will have to answer the question of what employees are allowed to do when re-exiting the office and working from home.

"People are anxious about the fact that they're not having the connections or contact that build relationships or generate sales," Segal said.

Employees may want to know what restrictions are being placed on them for nearby travel that is work-related.

"I think general counsel will be well received if they focus on not only what can't be done, which might mean coming into a building, but potentially what may be able to be done," Segal said.

Additionally, for re-exiting, employees should be broadly reminded of issues such as time reporting, expenses for nonexempt employees, workers' compensation and data privacy and security.

Despite the risks of having to send employees back home because of COVID-19, in-house counsel are still planning ways to bring them back. The data gathered by Gartner indicates 95% of in-house counsel said their companies will not bring their employees back to work until social-distancing arrangements can be made for the office. Of the 95 in-house counsel polled, 79% indicated adequate personal protective equipment should be in place before employees return to the office.

"In most cases, however, things will look very different for employees, and employers will need to make significant changes to workspace planning and acquire new resources such as PPE," Brian Lee, managing vice president in the Gartner legal and compliance practice in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.