1. Maternity/Paternity Leave
Shared Parental leave is to be introduced through an Act of Parliament to commence in 2015. This means that the current 52 weeks available as Maternity leave will be open to being shared between both parents of the child.
Employers need to think about how they will manage this right both within their own business and between their business and the business that employers the other parent of the child. A range of requirements around giving notice of taking shared parental leave, number of periods of shared leave that can be requested and ability to change their mind about shared leave up to 6 weeks after the birth of their child will all need careful management.
In other European countries this is not a new concept - in Sweden they have operated shared parental leave since 1974. Incidentally, Sweden is one of the strongest economies in the world.
This legislation will also give the right from 2015 to unpaid parental leave for children up to the age of 18.
Employers are recommended to develop a separate Shared Parental Leave Policy to effectively introduce this right to their employees. You also need to consider that, if you provide enhanced maternity rights to your staff that if you do not apply this to a man requesting shared parental leave this could be considered as indirect discrimination so care and clarity of policy is imperative. It is worth considering the financial and operational impact of this change on your businesses well in advance of it's introduction to ensure you are well prepared for the change.
2. Flexible Working
The right to request flexible working is extended to all employees with 26 weeks service as of (insert date). To help employers they will no longer have to follow the statutory procedure regarding flexible working requests. Requests will have to be given reasonable consideration within 3 months of receipt of the request.
The ACAS code on this is very helpful so as well as updating your flexible working policy I recommend you familiarise yourself with the ACAS code. You can download the guide via the link below:
http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=803
3. Sickness Absence
In the UK 140 million working days are lost to sickness absence each year and the cost to employers of this is approximately £9 billion per year.
Following an independent review of sickness, the government has introduced s of April this year a free independent Occupational Health service for ALL employers and employees. Key elements are:
- There is no cost to the employer or employee,
- Referral will occur after 4 weeks absence
- Intention is to reduce the length someone is absent and/or enable robust management of absence.
- At 20 weeks absence there is a service provided to employees to help match them to an alternative job if appropriate.
- The service will be provided by GP's and hospital outpatients.
- Employers will need to be proactive in corresponding with GP's to ensure their employees are referred in a timely manner.
I recommend having a well structured proactive absence management process that provides support and guidance to both employees and line managers to enable staff who are unable to attend work due to sickness to regain their health and return to work as quickly as possible. This can include well-being activities in the workplace, flexible benefits and supportive and well trained management.
4. Equality & Diversity
Currently under consultation is the introduction of a new 'protected characteristic' under the Equality Act 2010. Once approved this will introduce 'caste' as a new protected characteristic and it is likely to be in place around April 2015. Watch our for more updates on its progress.
Also within Harassment & Bullying- the 3rd party harassment provisions have been repealed. However employers should not become complacent in light of this as if you as the employer are aware of bullying and harassment and do nothing and this inaction sustains the unwanted behaviour they would still potentially have liability. Be careful of standing by and doing nothing...
5. Whistle-blowing
Here as employers you need to be aware that individuals have protection from detriment if they have made protected disclosures under Whistle blowing and that these protections are far reaching - this means they can go beyond the end of the employment relationship.
There has also been a change in the nature of the information disclosed. It must be information and not just opinion and you do not have to know it is true - if you have a reasonable belief that the employer has breached one of the reasons for whistle-blowing (criminal offence; breach of any legal obligation; miscarriage of justice; endangered health & safety of individuals; damaged the environment or deliberately concealed information about any of the previous ) then you are protected.
Finally the requirements that the disclosure was 'made in good faith' hs been replaced with 'in the public interest'. This means for example that a disclosure about your own contract of employment may not be covered unless it is in the 'public best interest'.
So what does this mean for you? Review your whistle blowing policy or implement one if you do not have one. Ensure employees know how to raise concerns in the workplace and offer regular communication to encourage this.
6. Discipline & Grievance
Employees have the right to be accompanied at a range of employment meetings such as disciplinary and grievance. Following a case in the Employment Appeal Tribunal’swho's ruling in the case of
Toal and anor v GB Oils (which concerned the refusal of GB Oils to allow Mr Toal and a colleague to be accompanied at a grievance hearing by a companion of their choice) it was suggested that Acas’ Code of Practice on Disciplinary and grievance procedures did not accurately reflect the law on the statutory right of
accompaniment.
In the EAT’s ruling in Toal, , it was stated that if a worker has been invited to a disciplinary or grievance hearing then, provided they have made a reasonable request to be accompanied at the hearing, they have the right to choose whoever they like as a companion - so long as the companion is from one of the categories set out in section 10 of the ERA 1999, (ie, a fellow worker, a person employed by a trade union or a trade union representative)
Given this ruling, Acas recognises that the current wording in its Code suggests an erroneous interpretation of the law and has therefore decided to amend the Code to take account of the EAT’s ruling. Watch out for updated guidance being published on their website.
You can download the current guide via the link below:
http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2179
For clarity I am including this.
Employees employed on or after the 6 April 2012 must have 2 years continuous service to qualify for unfair dismissal claims
Employees employed prior to the 6 April 2012 must have 1 years continuous service to qualify for unfair dismissal claims
7. Employment Tribunals
The ET process has seen a major overhaul and a number of changes have been made including:
- the introduction of tribunal fees - individuals wishing to apply to tribunal now have to pay a fee up front to submit their claim.
- the introduction of a sifting process of claims by judges to review the claims submitted and remove clearly erroneous claims or strike out parts of claims. There will be an appeal available at this stage.
- employers can now attach documents to their submission which will support their counter claim
-From the 5th may 2014 the ACAS early conciliation process will be mandatory beofre any claim can be submitted to tribunal. It is hoped that this will resolve a number of issues without the need for the tribunals involvement. Considerable process and guidance will be available from ACAS to support employers and individuals with this new requirement
- The upper limit for unfair dismissal compensatory awards will increase from the current £74,200 to £76,574 from the 6th April 2014 or a year's pay (gross) which ever is the lower.
If you are interested in attending employment law updates or other related events, have a look at the Capital Law website to see the up and coming events:
http://www.capitallaw.co.uk/site/events/
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