Shoring up employee relations in the Brexit aftermath
The Brexit revolution continues to send reverberations throughout UK workplaces. The political turmoil creates understandable uncertainty and anxiety in organisations of all shapes and sizes. Employees are unsure of the future and this presents both an opportunity and a risk for employers seeking to provide reassurance to staff on the road ahead. Trust and confidence […]
We can do this the easy way or the hard way…
Acas’ latest policy paper. ‘The road less travelled? Taking the informal route to conflict resolution’, encourages managers to use emotional intelligence to resolve problems at work before they get out of hand. But what challenges does the informal route present and are we equipped to come out the other side in one piece? Why is […]
Zero-hours contracts – friend or foe?
Zero-hours contracts have received a lot of attention in the press over the past couple of years. Generally speaking, ‘zero-hours’ means contracts where the employer doesn’t guarantee the individual any hours of work. We’ve also seen some high profile cases of businesses using (and ‘abusing’) zero-hours contracts. The criticism in some of these specific cases […]
Can you immediately dismiss an employee for gross misconduct?
A summary dismissal should only be used in a situation so severe that it can bypasses the usual disciplinary procedures every organisation should have in place. These disciplinary procedures usually provide that employees will not be dismissed for a first misconduct offence and will instead receive warnings increasing in severity up to dismissal. However, an […]
EU ‘snooping’ ruling: it’s about trust, not rights
News of Europe’s top court ruling that an employee whose boss read his messages had not had his rights violated this week has sparked much discussion. I believe that looking past the headlines, this is more an issue of organisations developing a trust culture than instilling one of fear through ‘big brother’ style surveillance. For me, […]
EU ‘snooping’ ruling: is it even morally ok to snoop on staff?
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently ruled that an employer was within its rights to read the Yahoo Messenger chats of one of its employees, as the employee had broken company rules. It’s been legal for quite some time now for employers to read their employees communications – within reason. UK law says […]
EU ‘snooping’ ruling: your questions answered
A new European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling allows employers to read workers' private messages sent via chat and email software during working hours. But what are the real implications for UK employers? Here are five questions answered by an employment lawyer to help bring you up to speed. Jamie Lawrence, Editor, HRZone: Does this […]
EU ‘snooping’ ruling: it’s time to recognise the social world we now live in
I’m no lawyer so this isn’t an expert legal take on the recent Barbulescu ECHR ruling in favour of his former employer around employers reading private messages at work. Said employer was monitoring and using evidence of his personal messaging during working hours which ultimately was the cause of his case to said European Court for […]
Improving employee satisfaction in transportation and logistics
A looming driver shortage could bring the £74bn transportation industry in the UK to a grinding halt – and do serious damage to the local economy. One suspected cause is the £2,000 cost of the Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (Driver CPC), which is required for all bus, coach and lorry drivers. Yet, even when employers […]
Legal advice: fighting at the Christmas party
Layla Bunni is a senior associate, specialising in employment law at Starr & Partners LLP. She advises on a wide range of both contentious and non-contentious employment issues. Her legal advice column continues: this month an office Christmas party has turned into a brawl. What action should be taken? It’s that time of year again, and […]
Can an employee’s contract of employment be changed once signed?
It is not unusual for a change to employees’ terms and conditions to present itself in an employment relationship. These changes can arise due to a number of reasons, for example, an employer may wish to reorganise their business structure or workforce so that it is more economically efficient. When an employer finds themselves in […]
Defining the role of a ‘worker’ in an Uber world
There is often a fine dividing line in determining whether, on the one hand, an individual is an employee or worker; or whether they are a genuine self-employed contractor on the other. Emerging trends in the workplace – particularly that of “agile working” – are making this determination increasingly more complex and have somewhat muddied […]
Our journey towards Living Wage accreditation
The first week of November is Living Wage Week, a UK-wide celebration of the Living Wage and the employers that are committed to it. It’s also an opportunity to raise awareness; it’s a subject that’s featured prominently in the papers over the last few months, but only 1,700 business out of the UK’s 4.9 million […]
How to help staff love your company strategy
PIPER (People Insight Peak Engagement Research), a new study from employee engagement organisation People Insight, asks the most engaged employees in the most engaged organisations what exactly makes them buzz. This is the second in a series (see the first here) sharing the secrets from top performing organisations – practices and behaviours that we know have […]
Analysing work stoppages for European employers
In football circles the term strike typically describes a shot at goal. This spring, however, the term grabbed headlines for different reasons. In May, players of La Liga — Spain’s topflight league, which includes superstars such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — went on strike as a result of a power struggle over who […]
How do you tell if someone is ready to work flexibly?
Eleven years after the right to request flexible working (Right to Request) was introduced, initially limited to assist carers with young families or disabled children, we saw the extension of that right to request in 2014 to most employees. Although some, such as The Agile Forum which was set up by Sir Winfried Bischoff to […]
Your 10-step survival guide to making redundancies
Why me? Is a question common to any HR professional that has had experience of handling redundancies. It is often the first thing an employee at risk of redundancy will ask and is often fuelled by emotion, indignation and a sense of injustice. The wrong response can easily inflame the employee’s sense of dissatisfaction and […]
A new ‘relationship agenda’ for HR?
The Tomorrow Company with other partners including the CIPD recently published a research report called ‘Tomorrow’s Relationships – unlocking value.' This echoes some of the key themes in my book published by Gower in 2013; namely, that risk in relationships is not given the attention it deserves alongside other aspects of business; the need for […]
Addressing bereavement at work – why it’s time for employers to act
Last week Acas launched its good practice guide for businesses on managing bereavement at work. Such guidance is long overdue. How well employees are supported by their employer following a bereavement can be something of a lottery, with some disparities, even within the same organisation, in the way line managers handle bereavement and in the […]
Employment tribunal fees a ‘victory’ for rogue employers
The introduction of employment tribunal fees has been a “huge victory” for bad employers, resulting in a significant drop in the number of claims, the Trades Union Congress has said. A TUC report to mark the first anniversary of the new charges has revealed that, since July 2013, there has been a 79% fall in […]
