Employment Updates

  • A Guide to Dealing with Requests for Flexible Working Arrangements

    The statutory right to request flexible working arrangements is currently available to parents of children aged 17 and under (18 and under where the child is disabled) and employees who care for, or expect to care for, certain adults. An employee must have...

  • A Guide to the Agency Workers Regulations

    The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR) came into force on 1 October 2011. Employers who use agency temporary staff should ensure they have procedures in place to comply with the changes. All agency workers are entitled, from the first day of their...

  • Additional Paternity Leave for New Fathers

    Employers are reminded that new rights apply to the parents of children born, or those notified that they have been matched with a child for adoption, on or after 3 April 2011. The Additional Paternity Leave Regulations 2010 give new fathers the right to...

  • Adoption - A Woman's Rights

    Women who are planning to adopt a child have similar rights as regards protection from unfavourable treatment as employees who are pregnant. This was illustrated by a landmark decision of the Employment Tribunal (ET). Anna Coulombeau joined Enterprise...

  • Age Discrimination - Life After the Abolition of the Default Retirement Age

    As a result of recent changes in the law, the last date on which an employer could lawfully notify an employee of a retirement dismissal using the statutory Default Retirement Age (DRA) provisions laid down by the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 ...

  • Age Discrimination - Qualifications and Pay Structure

    It is indirect discrimination for an employer to apply a provision, criterion or practice that is, on the face of it, age neutral but which puts people in a particular age group at a disadvantage, unless it can be shown to be a proportionate means of...

  • Collective Redundancy Consultation

    Employers should be aware of the potentially serious financial consequences of failing to consult when making collective redundancies. If an employer is proposing to make redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days or...

  • Collective Redundancy Consultation - Obligation to Consult in Special Circumstances

    A recent case before the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) dealt with a situation that is quite common in the construction industry, whereby problems encountered on site require adjustments to the working and staffing arrangements in order to adapt to the...

  • Costs Awards in Employment Tribunal Proceedings

    Costs orders are the exception, rather than the rule, in Employment Tribunal (ET) proceedings. However, where a claimant acts unreasonably in pursuing a claim, the ET can make a costs award in favour of the other party. In Dunedin Canmore Housing...

  • Damages for Wrongful Dismissal

    The Court of Appeal has ruled that an employee who suffered a loss as a result of findings of personal and professional misconduct made against him in disciplinary proceedings that were conducted in breach of his employment contract, which would not...

  • Dealing with Employee Absence

    Employee absences can be both costly and disruptive. It is advisable to have systems in place to measure and analyse these costs so that you can identify problem areas. Are there patterns of absence? Does a particular department have a below average record?...

  • Disability Discrimination - Duty to Make Reasonable Adjustments

    The decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Hinsley v Chief Constable of West Mercia Constabulary is a reminder to employers that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (now superseded by the Equality Act 2010 ) requires reasonable...

  • Disability Discrimination - Limits on Duty to Make Reasonable Adjustments

    Under Section 4A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), employers had a duty to make reasonable adjustments to working practices in order to ensure that a disabled employee was not disadvantaged. Under the Equality Act 2010 , which has now...

  • Disability Discrimination - Normal Day-to-Day Activities

    For the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) , a person had a disability if they had a physical or mental impairment which had a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their normal day-to-day activities. Under the Equality Act 2010...

  • Driving on Company Business

    Research by the Health and Safety Executive shows that 20 people are killed and 250 are seriously injured each week in traffic accidents involving someone driving for business reasons. The threat of employers being prosecuted for road accidents involving...

  • Drug Policy - Recognising the Signs and What to Do

    Research findings from Medscreen, based on drug testing carried out over the last ten years across a variety of professions, reveal that there has been a 3,000 per cent increase in the number of workers testing positive for cocaine. More than five per cent...

  • Failing to Prevent Bribery - Are You at Risk?

    The Bribery Act 2010 came into force on 1 July 2011. It created a new offence which can be committed by a commercial organisation if it fails to prevent persons associated with it from committing bribery on its behalf. A business can provide a defence by...

  • Graduate Recruitment

    Most businesses would like to benefit from an influx of talent, enthusiasm and fresh ideas. The challenge is to achieve it at an acceptable cost. One option is to employ a recent graduate. In the past, most graduate recruitment was undertaken by large...

  • In Brief: ACAS E-learning Guides

    The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) now has ten electronic learning guides available on its website. The topics are: • bullying and harassment; • managing absence in the workplace; • handling redundancy; •...

  • In Brief: ACAS Guidance on Holiday and Holiday Pay

    The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) has useful guidance for employers puzzling over staff holiday pay entitlements. The guidance leaflet gives a summary of holiday entitlements, setting out: the right to annual leave; when a...

  • In Brief: Advice on Occupational Asthma

    The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that each year between 1,500 and 3,000 people in Great Britain develop occupational asthma. The number rises to 7,000 cases a year if asthma made worse by work is taken into account. The cost to society is...

  • In Brief: Assessment of Repetitive Tasks Tool

    Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are the most common occupational illness in Britain. They include problems such as low back pain, joint injuries and repetitive strain injuries of various sorts, and affect more than 500,000 people every year. They are often...

  • In Brief: Data Protection

    The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has published a consolidated version of the guidance on data protection issues in employment. This brings together the four existing guides on recruitment and selection, employee records, monitoring at work and...

  • In Brief: Guidance on Cancer and Working

    Employees diagnosed with progressive forms of cancer are regarded as having a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 . Employers therefore have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to help employees overcome disadvantages arising from their...

  • In Brief: Guidance on Recruiting Refugees and Asylum Seekers

    The UK Border Agency has useful guidance to help UK employers understand the status of asylum seekers, refugees and those with humanitarian protection . This explains what documents employers should ask prospective employees to produce to ensure that they...

  • In Brief: Working at Height Regulations

    Falls from height are the single biggest cause of workplace deaths and one of the main causes of serious injury. A place is ‘at height’ if there is a risk of a fall liable to cause personal injury. The Work at Height Regulations 2005 were...

  • Informing and Consulting Employees

    The EU Information and Consultation Directive 2002 establishes minimum requirements for consulting and informing employees on a wide variety of subjects. The Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 implement the Directive in the UK. ...

  • New Minimum Wage Rates

    Employers are reminded that new National Minimum Wage (NMW) rates came into force on 1 October 2011. The revised rates are as follows: The adult hourly rate of the NMW increased from £5.93 to £6.08; The development rate (which covers...

  • No Homophobic Harassment Where Claimant Engaged in Similar Conduct

    A man who succeeded in his argument that homophobic workplace banter directed at a heterosexual worker could constitute harassment, under Regulation 5 of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 , has lost his claim because the...

  • Proposed Amendments to the Working Time Regulations

    The Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) as they currently stand are not in accord with recent decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the interpretation of the Working Time Directive with regard to the interaction of annual leave entitlement...

  • Protecting Business Interests

    When an employee leaves to go to work for another organisation, their employer may wish to have in place safeguards to protect sensitive information relating to the business, to prevent it from falling into the hands of a competitor. One possible way of...

  • Religious Discrimination - EHRC Proposes 'Reasonable Accommodation'

    In July, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced that it had applied to intervene in four cases due to be heard by the European Court of Human Rights, all of which were brought by Christian employees who claimed to be victims of religious...

  • Resolving Workplace Disputes

    As of 6 April 2009, the Employment Act 2008 repealed the Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedures in their entirety. In their place is a voluntary Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) Code of Practice , which sets out the basic principles...

  • Rest Breaks and On-Call Time

    The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland has ruled ( Martin v Southern Health and Social Care Trust ) that a nurse was not ‘on call’, for the purposes of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR), during unpaid rest breaks that were at risk of...

  • Staff Handbooks and Contractual Rights

    It is not uncommon for employees’ contracts of employment to expressly incorporate the staff handbook, although much of its contents will refer to policy matters rather than having contractual status. The decision of the Court of Appeal in Keeley v...

  • Stress - An Employer's Duties

    StressDealing with stress in the workplace is a difficult issue for employers who owe employees a common law duty to control stress levels. In 2002, the Court of Appeal (in Sutherland v Hatton) provided 16 points as guidance on the legal position concerning stress claims. In 2004, the House of Lords endorsed this general statement of the law (in Barber v Somerset County Council) but stressed it was only guidance and that each case would hinge on the particular facts under consideration. The case of Dickins v O2 plc, detailed in this article on our website, spells a clear message for employers: that stress cannot be ignored and it is important to have a formal stress policy in place. Employers should be alert to the signs of stress and once aware that a problem exists, investigate and take appropriate action at once.

  • TUPE - Post Transfer Consultation

    The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has considered ( AMICUS and TGWU v Glasgow City Council ) whether the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) require a transferee employer to consult with the union representatives...

  • TUPE - Post-Transfer Obligations and Collective Agreements

    The Court of Appeal has overturned the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Alemo-Herron and others v Parkwood Leisure Ltd. Parkwood Leisure Ltd. had taken over a company that acquired employees of the London Borough of Lewisham’s...

  • TUPE - Service Provision Changes

    The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) apply to any size of business and protect the employment rights of employees when their employer changes as a result of a relevant transfer. This occurs when there is a...

  • TUPE Regulations 2006

    The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) apply to any size of business and protect the employment rights of employees when their employer changes as a result of the relevant transfer of a business or a part of one....

  • The Corporate Manslaughter Act

    The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 established a new statutory offence of corporate manslaughter (corporate culpable homicide in Scotland). An organisation is guilty of the offence if the way in which it manages or organises its...

  • The Equality Act 2010 - A Guide for Employers

    The Equality Act 2010 has replaced nine major pieces of discrimination legislation and other ancillary measures that have been introduced over the last forty years. The core provisions of the Act came into force on 1 October 2010. As well as harmonising...

  • Time Limits for Equal Pay Claims - Stable Employment Relationships

    Local authorities across the UK face thousands of claims from women who contend that they have been paid less than men for doing similar work or work of equal value. Following a recent decision of the Court of Appeal, women who have worked for the same...

  • Time Limits for Lodging Appeals in the EAT

    The time limits for lodging appeals in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) are usually strictly enforced. Where an appeal is from a judgment of an Employment Tribunal (ET), the Notice of Appeal and supporting documentation must be lodged within 42 days of...

  • Triangular Agency Working Arrangements - The Correct Approach

    A further case ( East Living Ltd. v Sridhar and TSG Services Ltd.) has confirmed the approach an Employment Tribunal (ET) should take when deciding whether or not an agency worker is in reality the employee of the end user company. Mr Sridhar was supplied...

  • Unfair Dismissal - Expired Disciplinary Warnings

    The Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the Employment Tribunal (ET), upheld by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), that an employee was unfairly dismissed because his employer had taken account of an expired disciplinary warning when deciding to...

  • Unfair Dismissal - Reasonable Responses

    In Sarkar v West London Mental Health NHS Trust , the Court of Appeal has ruled that the Employment Tribunal (ET) was entitled to find that the decision to dismiss Dr Sameer Sarkar from his post as a Consultant Psychiatrist at Broadmoor Hospital was...

  • Unfair Dismissal - Reasonableness of Decision to Dismiss

    In Wincanton plc v Atkinson and another , the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered whether it was reasonable or unreasonable for the haulage company to dismiss two of its drivers who continued to perform their duties when they had inadvertently...

  • Unfair Dismissal - The Burden of Proof

    In unfair dismissal cases, where an employer has established that the employee’s dismissal was for one of the potentially fair reasons set out in the Employment Rights Act 1996 , whether the dismissal was fair or unfair will depend on whether or not...

  • Unfair Dismissal Claims - A Minute Late is Too Late

    An employee must bring an unfair dismissal claim within three months of his or her effective date of termination and the time limits for presenting claims to the Tribunals Service are normally strictly enforced. If the deadline is missed, the Employment...

  • Varying Employees' Contracts of Employment

    With economic prospects still looking gloomy, many employers are seeking ways to reduce staff costs and an alternative to making redundancies is to reorganise employees’ patterns of working. It is important to remember, however, that where this would...

  • Whistleblowers - The Scope of the Protection

    In BP plc v 1. Elstone 2. Petrotechnics Ltd. , the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) had to determine whether a worker could bring a claim under Section 47B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA) on the ground that he had suffered a detriment from his...

  • Whistleblowing - Disclosure Must Be In Good Faith

    The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) – often referred to as the ‘Whistleblowing’ Act – came into force in July 1999. PIDA inserted new sections into the Employment Rights Act 1996 which give workers legal protection when...

  • Workplace Bullying

    Workplace bullying is not only unpleasant and demotivating but it is also claimed to cost British business £14 billion annually. Surprisingly, there is no specific law relating to workplace bullying, although some forms of offensive behaviour would...

  • Written Statement of Employment Particulars

    A contract of employment may be verbal but all employees, whether part-time or full-time, are entitled by law to be given a written statement setting out the main particulars of their employment, provided their employment lasts for one month or more. All the...
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