Employment Library

• A Guide to Dealing with Requests for Flexible Working Arrangements

• From 6 April 2009, the statutory right to request flexible working arrangements has been extended to parents of children aged 16 and under. Employees with caring responsibilities for children aged up to 6 (18 and under where the child is disabled) and carers...

• Adoption - A Woman's Rights

• Employers are reminded that 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...

• Age Discrimination Checklist

• The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 , which came into force on 1 October 2006, aim to achieve equal treatment in employment and vocational training to eradicate discrimination on the grounds of age. Under the Regulations it is unlawful to...

• Associative Discrimination

• In a decision that will have far reaching implications, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled (Coleman v Attridge Law ) that a woman with a disabled child is entitled to protection from discrimination at work on the grounds of her child s...

• Bullying Award Sounds Further Warning Bell for Employers

• The award of 828,000 in damages to a Company Secretary Assistant, who endured a long-running campaign of bullying and harassment at the hands of her workmates, serves as a warning to employers who allow such behaviour to go on in the workplace. ...

• Changes to the Sex Discrimination Act

• In 2007, the former Equal Opportunities Commission brought judicial review proceedings against the Government regarding some of the provisions of the Employment Equality (Sex Discrimination) Regulations 2005 , which made amendments to the Sex...

• 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...

• Controlling Director Is an Employee

• A controlling shareholder of a company who is also a director can also be an employee for the purposes of employment protection law. In Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) v 1. Richard Neufeld and 2. Keith Howe , the...

• 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...

• Deliberate Failure to Pay the Minimum Wage

• The owners of a Sheffield butcher's shop have been ordered to pay more than 11,000 to two former employees because they failed to pay them the National Minimum Wage (NMW). This is the fourth successful NMW prosecution to date but it is the first in which...

• Disability Discrimination - Normal Day-to-Day Activities

• For the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), a person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their normal day-to-day activities. In Chief Constable of...

• Dispute Resolution - The New Regime

• In order to establish what it is hoped will be a more flexible system for dealing with 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...

• 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...

• 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...

• Employer Responsible for Work-Related Suicide

• Employees, or their dependants, are entitled to claim damages for injury caused by a workplace accident if: there was a duty of care owed to the injured person; that duty was not performed; and it was reasonably foreseeable that harm would...

• Employers Warned to Take Noise Seriously

• The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID), the charity which represents 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, has joined with the TUC in issuing a warning to employers and employees to take the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005...

• Expired Disciplinary Warnings and Unfair Dismissal

• The Court of Appeal has 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...

• Faulty Work Boots - Employer Not Liable for Employee's Frostbite

• The House of Lords ruled, in the case of Fytche v Wincanton Logistics , that an employer s absolute obligation to maintain or repair protective equipment, under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, does not extend to a situation where...

• Gay Harassment Costs Employer

• A former security guard at Heathrow Airport has been awarded 62,525 in compensation after a woman colleague was found to have harassed him on the grounds of his sexual orientation. Reading Employment Tribunal (ET) heard that Allwyn Rondeau, who worked...

• Guidance for Employers of Teleworkers

• Nowadays, many people work away from the traditional office environment through the use of modern technology. The Government estimates that there are now more than two million teleworkers in the UK who do some work from home, an increase of 65 per cent in...

• Immigration - A Brief Guide to the Points-Based System

• The Points-Based Immigration System (PBS) has replaced the previous routes to work and study in the UK for migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. In addition, the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill, published on...

• Immigration - A Brief Guide to the Points-Based System

• The Points-Based Immigration System (PBS) has replaced the previous routes to work and study in the UK for migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. In addition, the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act , passed on 21...

• 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 - Data Protection

• The Office of the Information Commissioner 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

• Changes introduced in December 2005 extended protection under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to those diagnosed with progressive forms of cancer. The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, together with the Working with Cancer group and...

• 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. In order to help prevent accidents of this type, revised Regulations came into force on 6 April 2005. The Work at Height Regulations (WAHR)...

• 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; discipline and...

• 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. These clarify the law in a useful question-and-answer format. Subjects covered include the entitlement of agency...

• 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. ...

• Long-Term Sick Leave and Holiday Pay

• The judgment of the House of Lords in the long-running case of Stringer and others v HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will be a blow to many businesses struggling to survive in the current economic climate. The Law Lords have overturned the decision of the...

• New Rights for Agency Workers

• After many failed attempts over the last six years by the EU Council of Ministers to agree on proposals to improve the employment rights of agency workers, the European Parliament has finally approved the draft Agency Workers Directive without amendments,...

• Night Sleeper Entitled to National Minimum Wage

• A recent decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ( Burrow Down Support Services Ltd. v Rossiter ) has confirmed that a night worker who was required to be available to deal with security issues at his employer s premises, but who could sleep for...

• Pregnant Women and Risk Assessments

• Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 employers have a duty to alter working conditions to avoid risk to a new or expectant mother. However, the case of New Southern Railway Ltd. v Quinn illustrates that when carrying out...

• Preventing Occupational Deafness

• The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 introduced tighter controls on exposure to noise levels in the workplace, to protect workers from damage to their hearing. The noise level at which workers are required to have hearing protection available is...

• 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. Following a recent decision of the Court of Appeal (...

• Stress - An Employer's Duties

• Dealing with stress in the workplace is a difficult issue for employers. As well as specific duties under health and safety legislation, employers owe their employees a common law duty to take reasonable care to safeguard their health and safety and this...

• 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 Regulations - A Brief Guide

• 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. They...

• 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 Civil Partnership Act

• When the Civil Partnership Act 2004 came into force in December 2005, amendments were made to the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 in order to make it clear that the status of a civil partner is comparable with that of a spouse....

• The Corporate Manslaughter Act

• On 6 April 2008 most of the long-awaited Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 came into force. The Act established a new statutory offence of corporate manslaughter (corporate culpable homicide in Scotland). An organisation is guilty...

• 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...

• Tips and the National Minimum Wage

• Following a consultation exercise involving representatives of employers and employees in the hotel, restaurant and related industries, the Government has announced that from 1 October 2009 it will be illegal for employers to use staff tips to bring pay up...

• 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...

• 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...

• Whistleblowing - Persisting in Allegations

• The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has ruled ( Aryeetey v Tuntum Housing Association ) that the Employment Tribunal (ET) was entitled to take into account developments that occurred between the liability hearing and the remedies hearing when determining...

• 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 disclosing information...

• 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...