One trade body suggests three quarters of its members have had staff off sick in the last month.
After years of disruption, many firms are hoping for things to return to normal. But it's not yet business as usual.
But Jane Gratton of the BCC said Covid, paired with rising costs, meant this was a "precarious time" for business. The company, which blends and packages ingredients for gifts and subscription deliveries, has 15 staff split between the office, and others blending and bagging spices on the shop floor."We've had instances where we've had a number of cases in the warehouse, enough for us to shut down production for a week or two weeks," Sanjay says. "There were times when it was just me in the unit running the whole business.
"It was important for us to find out about people's personal situations," explains Sanjay, adding that this was a priority when discussing vaccines with young warehouse staff. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that about one in six businesses are paying sick pay to staff voluntarily self-isolating when testing positive.