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Dear Reader
Welcome to HR Today, the monthly newsletter from IntellectHR keeping you up-to-date with employment law changes and free HR services that our members are entitled to.
In addition to the newsletter, Intellect members have full access to our free IntellectHR service, providing you with web-based HR guidance including a full range of practical step-by-step guides, letters, forms, contracts, an employee handbook, and customisable policies.
For a reminder of your login details, please contact us. Forward this email to a friend.
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Grievances, discipline and dismissal - the way forward |
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With effect from 06 April, the Employment Simplification Bill will repeal the deeply unpopular statutory dispute resolution procedures. However, whilst the new rules are generally more geared toward simplicity and seem to relax the current prescriptive process, the basic overall message remains that grievance, disciplinary and dismissal issues should be dealt with promptly and consistently, following proper investigation (where necessary), allowing the employee to put his/her case forward, with a right to be accompanied and to an appeal process.
Read the full story» |
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Reminder of changes in April |
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A reminder that next month sees the following:
- increases in the rates of SSP, SMP, SAP and SPP
- an increase in the amount of statutory holiday to 5.6 weeks (which may include bank/public holidays)
- the repeal of the statutory grievance and disciplinary procedures
- the extension of flexible working to carers of children aged up to 16
- changes to the methods used to enforce the national minimum wage and to calculate arrears, plus an unlimited fine for underpayment of the national minimum wage or employment agency offences
Read the full story»
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Further restrictions on appointing foreign workers As of 01 April, employers seeking candidates from outside the EU will be required to advertise skilled vacancies through JobCentre Plus for at least two weeks. At the moment, employers must publish job vacancies in the UK for up to two weeks before advertising overseas. In an attempt to get round this restriction, some employers have used obscure trade journals or newsagent shop windows, knowing that few appropriate UK jobseekers would see their adverts. |
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National minimum wage (NMW) review deadline extended The Low Pay Commission (LPC) has been given a later deadline to submit its recommendations for this year's NMW increase (due in October). The recommendation will be made by 01 May 2009, giving the LPC time to take account of the Bank of England's next Inflation Report, employee jobs figures for December 2008, GDP figures for the fourth quarter of 2008 and updates on average earnings. |
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Discrimination on the rise?
The Chartered Management Institute has published a new guide, 'Religion and belief in the workplace', aimed at helping employers tackle prejudice and misunderstanding. This includes information about different religious beliefs, a brief overview of the law and explains the business case for taking account of religion as well as the range of issues policies should cover, such as prayer time and Holy Days or festivals. Other interesting cases include:
- discrimination on grounds of age
- discrimination: equal pay
- discrimination on grounds of disability
Read the full story» | |
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Maternity leave - changes delayed Plans to extend statutory maternity rights, originally due to take effect by 2010, have been delayed.
The proposed changes were to increase pay to 52 weeks (to cover the whole period of both ordinary and additional maternity leave) and to introduce an entitlement to up to 26 weeks paternity leave (at least part of which would be paid), which would allow both parents to share the ordinary maternity leave period.
There are now suspicions that the change could be delayed indefinitely. |
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Ensuring that agency workers know their rights
The government has launched a £1m 'Know Your Rights' campaign to raise agency workers' awareness of their employment rights. This will incorporate poster and press campaigns as well as letters from business minister Pat McFadden to some 13,000 employment agencies.
If you use agency workers read our guide. (members only - you will need to log in).
Read our guide here» | |
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Some interesting cases - Warn if dismissal is a possible outcome
- Discrimination - religion or belief
- Harassment on grounds of race
- Redundancy: what is an establishment?
- TUPE - collective agreements may transfer across
- Dismissal of apprentices
Read the full story» | | |
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Working Time Regulation (WTR) - even more uncertainty around the future of the opt-out |
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Just when it looked as though the opt-out was certain to go, the European Commission rejected the European Parliament's proposal to end the opt-out from the maximum average 48-hour week. However, the Commission's opinion allows for a greater restriction on the use of the opt-out than is currently the case. It would have to be used with appropriate safeguards and after other forms of flexibility have been examined. Workers would be unable to agree to opt-out during their probationary period and a cap of 60 hours may be agreed.
Read the full story» |
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WTR - holiday (but not all holiday) continues to accrue during long-term sick leave
In last month's newsletter we covered the recent ruling that annual leave continues to accrue during sick leave, but a recent email alerted us to something that wasn't initially obvious to most commentators - ie that this ruling only applies to the four week minimum holiday entitlement currently provided by the European Working Time Directive and not the 4.8 weeks (soon to be 5.6 weeks) provided by the Working Time Regulations in the UK. Nor does it apply to any additional contractual holiday to which an employee may be entitled under his/her contract of employment.
Read the full story»
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Over the next two weeks we will be reviewing our template grievance, disciplinary, redundancy and absence policies to comply with the repeal of the dispute resolution procedures - together with all of the associated guidance and advice! Do keep an eye on these - if you need further assistance in updating your policies, please call the helpline.
Our premium service offers a wider range of more specialist documents, but also allows clients to generate policies on our website and store these - when they then come to update them, a website tool runs a comparison and shows them the differences between their customised version and our most recently updated one - making updating policies easy and quick. We are also working on offering word-processing versions of letters so that the format can be easily changed to suit your company style and this will be offered as part of the premium package, which costs just £100 more per annum.
Find out more about our premium service»
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The effect of the recession |
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Are we more inefficient? Research shows job insecurity leads to inefficient working.
Even more redundancies to come?
Read the full story» |
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