Employment Library

• Disability Discrimination - Normal Day-to-Day Activities

• Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), a person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a long-term substantial adverse effect on their normal day-to-day activities. The DDA requires employers to make...

• Employee or Self-Employed - Mutuality of Obligation

• When deciding whether a worker is an employee or a self-employed person, it is necessary to examine the exact nature of the working relationship. Two important factors in deciding whether an arrangement is a contract of service or a contract for...

• In Brief - Data Protection

• The Office of the Information Commissioner has published a consolidated version of the guidance on data protection issues in employment. This brings together the four existing guides on recruitment and selection, employee records, monitoring at work...

• In Brief - Guidance on Cancer and Working

• Changes introduced in December 2005 extended protection under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to those diagnosed with progressive forms of cancer. The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, together with the Working...

• Sex Discrimination and Harassment

• A woman who brought a claim for sexual harassment, after she discovered that nine of her colleagues had circulated obscene emails about her, received a 10,000 settlement from her former employer. The woman, who worked as a Sales Support...

• Sexual Orientation Discrimination

• Gay Man Wins Sexual orientation Discrimination Case A case before a Scottish Employment Tribunal (ET) has seen a gay man awarded 118,309 after his claim of discrimination under the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003...

• Whistleblowing Must Be In Good Faith

• The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) often referred to as the Whistleblowing Act came into force in July 1999. PIDA inserted new sections into the Employment Rights Act 1996 which give workers legal protection when disclosing...

• Age Discrimination Checklist

• The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 , which came into force on 1 October 2006, aim to achieve equal treatment in employment and vocational training to eradicate discrimination on the grounds of age. Under the Regulations it is unlawful...

• Asleep But On Call

• Asleep But On Call A hotel worker won his appeal that he was entitled to be paid for the hours he spent asleep at work. William Anderson worked as a general assistant with Guest Care Manager responsibilities at the Learmonth Hotel in...

• Blind Worker Wins Discrimination Case

• In an unusual case, a blind computer specialist won her claim of disability discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal in the Court of Appeal, highlighting the risks for employers who fail to give sufficient attention to the needs of disabled...

• Bullying Award Sounds Further Warning Bell for Employers

• The award of 828,000 in damages for a Company Secretary Assistant, who endured a long-running campaign of bullying and harassment at the hands of her workmates, serves as a further warning to employers who allow such behaviour to go on in the workplace. ...

• Call Centre Worker Wins Flexible Working Case

• Since 6 April 2003 parents of children aged under 6 (or under 18 if the child is disabled) have had the legally enforceable right to ensure that a request for flexible working arrangements is not rejected without good cause. Although time...

• Compromise Agreements

• As a general rule, out of court settlements of employment disputes are not legally binding in that they cannot exclude an employee's right to take the matter concerned to an Employment Tribunal (ET). A formal compromise agreement is one of the few...

• Consultation on Draft Code of Practice on Discipline and Grievance

• The Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004 , which require employers and employees to operate statutory minimum disciplinary, dismissal and grievance procedures were intended to give those involved the chance to settle complaints...

• 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...

• Defective Compromise Agreements

• There are specific rules that normally apply when an employer enters into a compromise agreement in order to prevent an employee from taking action on a particular matter at the Employment Tribunal at a future date. A recent case has further...

• Disability Discrimination - Normal Day-to-Day Activities

• Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), a person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a long-term substantial adverse effect on their normal day-to-day activities. The DDA requires employers to...

• Disabled Employees and Sick Pay

• In an important judgment in a case concerning the application of sick pay policies to disabled employees ( O Hanlon v HM Revenue and Customs ), the Court of Appeal has held that a sick pay policy that did not provide unlimited full pay for a disabled...

• 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...

• 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 of...

• Dual Vicarious Liability for Negligence

• Vicarious liability is the obligation which falls on one person, for example an employer, as a result of the actions or omissions of another, for example an employee. The Court of Appeal has ruled that liability for the actions of an ...

• Employers Warned to Take Hearing Damage Seriously

• The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID), the charity which represents 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, has joined with the TUC in issuing a warning to employers and employees to take the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005...

• Faulty Work Boots - Employer Not Liable for Employee's Frostbite

• The House of Lords ruled, in the case of Fytche v Wincanton Logis tics, that an employer s absolute obligation to maintain or repair protective equipment, under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, does not extend to a situation...

• Guidance for Employers of Teleworkers

• Nowadays, many people work away from the traditional office environment through the use of modern technology. The Government estimates that there are now more than two million teleworkers in the UK who do some work from home, an increase of 65 per cent in...

• In Brief - ACAS E-learning Guides

• The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) now has eight electronic learning guides available on its website. The topics are bullying and harassment; managing absence in the workplace; redundancy handling; ...

• 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...

• In Brief - Working at Height Regulations

• Falls from height are the single biggest cause of workplace deaths and one of the main causes of serious injury. In order to help prevent accidents of this type, revised Regulations came into force on 6 April 2005. The Work at Height Regulations...

• 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. These clarify the law in a useful question-and-answer format. Subjects covered include the entitlement of agency...

• Increases in Statutory Holiday Entitlement

• From 1 October 2007 the Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2007 increased the statutory minimum annual holiday entitlement from 4 weeks (20 days for those working a 5 day week) to 4.8 weeks (24 days). Employees do not have to work for a...

• Informing and Consulting Employees - A Reminder

• The EU Information and Consultation Directive 2002 establishes minimum requirements for consulting and informing employees on a wide variety of subjects. The Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 implement the Directive in the UK. ...

• Landmark Adoption Ruling

• A recent case at the Employment Tribunal (ET) is a reminder to employers that women who are planning to adopt a child have similar rights as regards protection from unfavourable treatment as employees who are pregnant. Anna Coulombeau joined...

• Minimum Wage Employees Gas and Electricity Payments

• The Court of Appeal has upheld the ruling of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in the case of Leisure Employment Services Ltd. v HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which dealt with the operation of the national minimum wage legislation. HMRC had...

• Pregnant Women and Risk Assessments

• Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 employers have a duty to alter working conditions to avoid risk to a new or expectant mother. However, the case of New Southern Railway Ltd. v Quinn illustrates that when...

• Protection Against Unfair Dismissal When Working Abroad

• The House of Lords has clarified the position as to when an employee who works wholly or partly outside Great Britain can bring a claim of unfair dismissal before an Employment Tribunal (ET). Under section 94(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA),...

• Rastafarian Loses Discrimination Claim

• The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations prohibit direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, victimisation and harassment in the workplace on the grounds of any religion, religious or philosophical belief. A man has lost his...

• Recruitment Preventing Illegal Working Without Discrimination

• Hardly a day goes by without there being some mention of illegal immigration in the news. The number of people discovered working in the UK unlawfully has risen sharply in recent years. There has been much talk of the possible introduction of national...

• Right to Claim for Asbestos Condition Lost

• Sufferers of an asbestos-related condition, pleural plaques, do not have the right to claim compensation, even when the condition has been caused by negligence, following a landmark decision in the House of Lords. The judgment reversed the...

• Rolled Up Holiday Pay

• Following the March 2006 judgment of the European Court of Justice on the legality of rolled up holiday pay, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has now updated its guidance on the Working Time Regulations to reflect the judgment. In...

• Screen Fatigue

• A survey conducted by The Eyecare Trust reveals that the average person will spend 128,780 hours in their working life staring at a screen. 63 per cent of those surveyed said they regularly leave work with a headache and 53 per cent suffer from tired or...

• Sexual Orientation Discrimination

• Gay Man Wins 10,000 A case before a Scottish Employment Tribunal (ET) has seen a gay man awarded 118,309 after his claim of discrimination under the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 was upheld. Jonah Ditton claimed...

• Staff Handbooks and Contractual Rights

• It is not uncommon for employees contracts of employment to expressly incorporate the staff handbook, although much of its contents will refer to policy matters rather than having contractual status. Following a recent decision of the Court of Appeal (...

• Stress - An Employer's Duties

• Dealing with stress in the workplace is a difficult issue for employers and certainly one that cannot be ignored. As well as specific duties under health and safety legislation, employers owe their employees a common law duty to take reasonable care to...

• TUPE Regulations - A Brief Guide

• The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) apply to any size of business and protect the employment rights of employees when their employer changes as a result of the relevant transfer of a business or a part of...

• TUPE Regulations 2006

• The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) apply to any size of business and protect the employment rights of employees when their employer changes as a result of the relevant transfer of a business or a part of one....

• TUPE and the Date of Transfer

• Following a referral to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the House of Lords has handed down its ruling in an important case ( Celtec Ltd. v Astley and others ) dealing with the date of transfer of a business under the Transfer of Undertakings...

• The Civil Partnership Act

• The Civil Partnership Act 2004 came into force on 5 December 2005. Same-sex couples can now register their partnerships officially and the legal relationship will last, as does civil marriage, until death, dissolution, or annulment. Other...

• The Employment Status of Agency Workers

• Under the Employment Rights Act 1996 , protection against unfair dismissal is only afforded to employees. For this reason, the exact employment status of an agency worker is often at issue in the courts. The Court of Appeal has handed down...

• The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations

• Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is already prohibited in relation to employment and vocational training. The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, which came into force on 30 April 2007, provide protection for...

• Unfair Dismissal and Polkey Reductions

• Under section 98A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA), if an employer fails to follow the correct procedure in relation to the dismissal of an employee, this will not by itself make the employer's action unreasonable if he can demonstrate that he would...

• Whistleblowing Disclosure Must Be In Good Faith

• The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) often referred to as the Whistleblowing Act came into force in July 1999. PIDA inserted new sections into the Employment Rights Act 1996 which give workers legal protection when disclosing information...

• Working Time Regulations Extended

• The Working Time Regulations implement the European Working Time Directive and parts of the Young Workers Directive. The regulations entitle workers to an average 48-hour week, four weeks paid annual holiday, rest breaks, health assessments for night...

• Written Statement of Employment Particulars

• A contract of employment may be verbal but all employees, whether part-time or full-time, are entitled by law to be given a written statement setting out the main particulars of their employment, provided their employment lasts for one month or more. All the...