Ask the Expert: How legal are contract clauses to work overtime for no pay?
The question I’ve just downloaded an Employment Contract T&C’s template from an online provider and it contains the following condition: 5. Hours of work Your normal hours of work are between [TIME] and [TIME], [Mondays] to [Fridays] inclusive, with a lunch break of one hour. You may be required to work such additional hours […]
Health and safety investigations panel branded of “limited use”
A panel set up to try and end the inappropriate use of UK health and safety legislation in the workplace and elsewhere has been branded as of only “limited use” by one legal expert. The Health and Safety Executive has set up a ‘Myth Busters Challenge Panel’ to look into complaints about decisions made by […]
Breakthrough reached in Unilever pension dispute
Two out of three unions have broken the deadlock in a long-running pension dispute at Unilever by accepting what they described as a “significantly improved” offer. Members of the Unite and Usdaw unions have accepted improvements made to a career average pension scheme that had been put on the table to replace a more lucrative […]
Legal Insight: Compromise agreements
On Friday 6 April, changes to The Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) Order 2012 confirmed that an employee’s lawyer could act as an independent adviser for the purposes of preparing a compromise agreement. But while this is all very well and good, what actually is a compromise agreement and why do employers use them so frequently […]
Employers shun temps in wake of Agency Worker Regs
Just over six months after the Agency Worker Regulations first appeared, initial findings seem to indicate that they are bringing about three key shifts in the employment market. While the legislation, which came into force on 1 October 2011, is pushing some employers towards taking staff on permanently, it is encouraging others to hire excluded […]
Jealous HR staff ‘bin CVs with pics of pretty rivals’
It appears that internet sensation Samantha Brick may have a point – research has revealed that women should beware of attaching photos of themselves to their CVs because jealous HR staff have a habit of binning them. Brick, a former TV presenter, who has widely been accused of being an internet troll – or someone […]
Legal Insight: The verdict on April’s employment law changes
April sees a number of changes to employment law coming into force in the UK. But the aim here is to sift through some of the coalition government’s rhetoric to provide an easy-to-read summary of the top five changes coming into force this April and exactly what they will mean for employers. 1. Increase […]
Ask the Expert: Who is responsible for providing personal protective equipment on site?
The question In the case of agency staff, can you advise who is responsible for the provision of basic non-task specific personal protective equipment such as hard hats, gloves, coveralls, eye protection, high vis vests, cold weather jackets etc? These workers normally arrive on site with their own kit initially. However, my query has […]
Most employers believe fit notes don’t work, studies reveal
The majority of employers do not believe that fit notes work effectively in cutting sickness absence rates, two studies have revealed. An online poll undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professonials discovered that a huge nine out of ten employers felt that ‘The Statement of Fitness for Work’, which replaced the old ‘sick note’ […]
Blog: What will increasing the unfair dismissal qualifying period mean in reality?
On 6 April 2012 the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims rises from one to two years. The change will only affect new employees whose employment starts on or after April 6 2012. Those employees already in employment will retain the current qualifying period of one year. The change will not affect automatic unfair […]
In a Nutshell: Five legal tips for easing Diamond Jubilee holiday headaches
Marks & Spencer, Edinburgh Woollen Mills and Dorchester NHS Trust have been named and shamed for refusing to give staff paid leave on both days of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend at the start of June. The TUC criticised all three organisations for requiring personnel to work on Tuesday 5 June, the final day of […]
Blog: What to do if your staff win the lottery
As recent events at a certain bus company have shown, it’s sometimes the case that when employees are winners, it’s their employer that loses – usually losing a bunch of staff! With so many staff syndicates playing the lottery, how can employers mitigate the risks of big-time winners all downing tools (or stopping their buses) […]
UK faces spring of discontent
The UK is facing a spring of discontent, with baggage handlers at Stansted airport voting to strike, doctors balloting for action in May and the police planning a protest that month too. Holidaymakers travelling through Stansted over the Easter weekend face disruption after 150 members of the GMB union voted to take industrial action over […]
HP gives contractors a 5% pay cut ultimatum
High tech giant HP is reportedly offering IT contractors at its Enterprise Security Services division a stark choice in pay terms: either take a 5% rate cut next month or lose your post. That 5% is a minimum, by the way – it could be bigger in some cases. (One slice of the workforce, the ones […]
Agency Worker Regs lead to creation of new staff payment models
Contrary to expectations, the introduction of the Agency Worker Regulations has not had a negative impact on demand for temps, although it has given rise to new payment models in the industrial and driving sectors. These are the key findings of research undertaken by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation to commemorate the six month anniversary […]
Blog: The high cost of presenteeism
UK employers lost £36 billion last year due to employee absence. Sounds a lot? Not if we look at the other side of the coin. The cost of lower than normal productivity caused by employees showing up for work when they are not feeling 100% could be up to three times higher than absenteeism’s […]
Ask the Expert: Are dads on paternity leave entitled to bank holidays?
The question One of our employees became a father on 22 December, 2011. He requested and took his two weeks of paternity leave, starting on the day that the baby was born and ending on 5 January, 2012. However, during those two weeks, there were three bank holidays. Has he lost these now […]
Do you take visa? How to deal with the new immigration guidelines
There are now a myriad of documents that enable workers to take up different posts in the UK. But even though the UK Borders Agency published new guidelines in relation to its five-tier visa system earlier this month, employers still face a huge amount of risk when dealing with items that all too common such […]
Public sector employers not liable for asbestos claims, rules Supreme Court
Public sector employers no longer risk having to shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds for asbestos-related claims after the Supreme Court finally settled a long-running dispute between insurers over liability. The ruling in the landmark case centred on the question of who was responsible for paying compensation for claims relating to invariably fatal asbestos-induced […]
Social media ‘shoulder surfing’ during interviews could lead to lawsuits
UK employers should be wary of adopting a legally risky US trend that is seeing bosses ask interviewees for social media passwords in order to scrutinise their personal profiles. Although not illegal in the US, the practice is already causing so much concern that two senators have asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the […]