Employment Library

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 16 and under (under 18 where the child is disabled) and employees who care for, or expect to care for, certain adults. From 2014, however, the...
A Guide to the Agency Workers Regulations
The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR) came into force on 1 October 2011. All agency workers are entitled, from the first day of their assignment, to information on any job vacancies and to make use of collective facilities and amenities available to...
Age Discrimination - Life After the Abolition of the Default Retirement Age
The Default Retirement Age (DRA) has now been abolished and it is no longer permissible for an employer to dismiss an older worker on the ground of retirement unless this can be objectively justified under the Equality Act 2010 . This does not mean that...
Age Discrimination - Mandatory Retirement
Whilst enforced retirement at age 65 has now been abolished and the Equality Act 2010 has replaced the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 , the decision of the Supreme Court in a case brought under the Regulations ( Seldon v Clarkson, Wright...
Collective Redundancy Consultation - Decision Outside Scope of Directive, Rules ECJ
In United States of America v Nolan , the Court of Appeal sought guidance from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) as to the point at which the obligation to consult arises under Directive 98/59/EC, the Collective Redundancies Directive. Difficulties...
Collective Redundancy Consultation - Government Announces Changes
EU Directive 98/59/EC, the Collective Redundancies Directive, was enacted into UK domestic law by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA). Whilst the Directive requires a minimum consultation period of only 30 days for...
Damages for Wrongful Dismissal
The Supreme Court has ruled ( Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust ) that a consultant surgeon who suffered a loss as a result of findings of personal and professional misconduct made against him in disciplinary proceedings that were...
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...
Disability Discrimination - Failure to Make Reasonable Adjustments
When deciding a reasonable adjustments claim under Section 4A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (now replaced by the Equality Act 2010 ), the Employment Tribunal (ET) must identify the relevant provision, criterion or practice (PCP) and then...
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...
Dismissal and the Effective Date of Termination
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has overturned a decision of the Employment Tribunal (ET) that a revised notice of dismissal did not prevent an employee from completing the one year’s continuous employment necessary for him to bring a claim of...
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...
ECHR Rules in Religious Discrimination Claims
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has handed down its rulings in four UK cases in which Christian employees claimed to have suffered discrimination at work on account of their religious beliefs. Two of the cases concerned women who were prevented...
ECHR Rules on Protection of Political Beliefs
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that United Kingdom legislation is deficient as it does not protect employees, including those with less than one year’s service, from dismissal on grounds of political opinion or affiliation ( ...
Employees Who Fall Sick Whilst on Annual Leave
On more than one occasion, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said that the purpose of the entitlement to paid annual leave is to enable a worker to rest and to enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure, whereas the purpose of the entitlement to sick...
Employment Rights - Ministers of Religion
For many years, it was accepted law that ministers of religion did not normally come within the definition of ‘employee’ for the purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA) because they were traditionally deemed to be ‘office...
Employment Tribunal Fees
Currently, bringing a claim to the Employment Tribunal (ET) is free of charge and the cost of running the service is £84 million per annum. In 2012, as part of the Government’s review of employment and workplace law, the Ministry of Justice...
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...
Government Announces Further Flexible Working Measures
The Additional Paternity Leave Regulations 2010 gave new fathers who qualify the right to take additional paternity leave during the period which begins 20 weeks after the child’s date of birth and ends 12 months after this date if the mother chooses...
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...