December 5, 2019
Christmas may be ‘the most wonderful time of the year’, but for many employers it can be a time-consuming and administrative nightmare. Think seasonal trading spikes, an influx of annual leave requests and the challenge of coordinating the Christmas rota. Holiday entitlement and how effectively requests are managed directly impacts employee satisfaction. Getting the basics right…
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November 12, 2019
Do you remember 2017, when the UK Parliament’s every pronouncement didn’t start or end with the word “Brexit”? That was the year the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, commissioned a guy called Matthew Taylor to review employment law. The laudable objective was that work in the UK should be fair and decent with realistic hope…
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August 27, 2019
The Information Commissioner’s Office is finally flexing its GDPR muscles and recently gave notice of two substantial fines. The ICO are hitting the headlines having issued their first fines under GDPR. British Airways face a fine of £183 million and Marriott Hotels £99 million for significant breaches to customers’ sensitive personal data. The ICO normally…
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July 11, 2019
The ICO are hitting the headlines having issued their first fines under GDPR. Both British Airways and Marriott International were fined for breaching European data rules. BA and Marriott face fines totalling almost £300m under GDPR British Airways were fined £183m for a breach of their security systems. The breach occurred when their company website…
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May 13, 2019
Does a candidate in a recruitment exercise have a right to see employment references requested and received from their current or former employer? You’re part way through an extensive recruitment process. The hiring manager has decided to make an offer of employment to a candidate. The offer is of course subject to receipt of a…
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May 8, 2019
The Working Time Regulations, which govern workers’ and employees’ rights to rest breaks, compensatory rest and paid annual leave, can be extremely complicated. Our HR & Employment Law Advice Line receives several queries each week regarding these matters. Common Queries include: If an individual is self-employed, are they not entitled to paid annual leave? What…
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April 24, 2019
Police Sergeant Angel explained the benefit of a pocket notebook in the 2007 comedy film, Hot Fuzz as follows: “this is the most important piece of equipment you will ever own. This notebook has saved my skin more times than I care to mention…” It is advisable that any formal meeting with an employee, should…
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April 18, 2019
Research by the Office for National Statistics reveals that by the mid 2030’s half of all adults in the UK will be over 50 years of age. However, despite this statistical evidence, there are real barriers to older people entering and remaining in the workplace. Eileen Jolly-v-Royal Berkshire Hospital 2018 A recent age discrimination case…
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April 10, 2019
According to a recent survey, Health and Wellbeing at Work, completed by the CIPD and the Simplyhealth, the average level of employee absence this year is 5.9 days per employee per year, or 2.6% of working time lost. This is the lowest figure recorded by this survey. Their findings indicate a fluctuating but gradual decline…
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March 27, 2019
Calculating holiday entitlement for full time employees is relatively straight-forward. But what about when an employee starts or leaves part way through the holiday year, and what about part time employees? That’s when calculating holiday entitlement gets much more difficult… But don’t worry – to help you through this arithmetic exercise, we’ve compiled the following…
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February 26, 2019
Recently, we have been receiving an increasing number of queries to our advice line on issues relating to holiday entitlement. In order to offer some guidance in this complex area, we’ve compiled a list of the most common questions we receive and, importantly, the answers to them. Q: Is an employee entitled to paid annual…
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January 16, 2019
In December 2018, the government announced the ‘Good Work Plan’. This forms part of the government’s response to Matthew Taylor’s Review of Modern Working Practices. Greg Clark, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary described the changes as the “largest upgrade in a generation to workplace rights”. In 2016 the government set up a commission chaired…
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