Employment Law

Today employment law is not only complex but a minefield. There isn’t one area you can say is straight forward and simple.

Employment law impacts on all areas of employment, from recruitment to termination of employment (and indeed afterwards). Following are some of the areas of employment law that employers should be aware of.

Employment law today is more complex than it has ever been. It touches every area of employment. Not only is employment law complex, there volumes of it. A tribunal decision can have a significant impact on interpretation of employment law guidelines. We keep on top of employment law for our clients so that they may focus of their business, without the fear of breaking the law.

Here are some examples of areas of law that employers need to be aware of:

Asylum & immigration
Discrimination – age. race, religion, sex and sexual orientation to name a few
Part-time workers rights
Right to have written particulars of employment within 2 months of starting
Maternity/paternity/parental leave and time off to care for a dependant
Unfair dismissal
Redundancy

Discrimination

Employees are protected by law against unfair discrimination on several grounds, including race, religion, disability, gender (sex, sexual orientation & equal pay) and age. There is direct and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination occurs if, for example, an employee is repeatedly passed for training because of their age, or are claimed to be either too young or too old or because of their sex. Indirect discrimination is sometimes harder to detect. Indirect discrimination happens when an employment procedure, practice or criteria disadvantages a particular group of employees without sound justification. For example:

A manager insists he holds weekly team meetings at 9.00am once every week. Majority of the female staff start work later. This means that they miss out on the meeting and as a result are disadvantaged on the grounds of their sex.

Contract of Employment

A contract of employment forms the basis of the employment relationship and is an agreement between the employer and employee that is made at the start of the employee's employment. This agreement may be verbal, written or implied and comes into being from the moment the employee accepts the offer of employment.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 requires employers to provide their employees with a written statement of their terms and conditions of employment within 8 weeks of commencing work with their organisation and this usually takes the form of a written employment contract.

However, every year millions of pounds are spent on court cases arising from situations where a contract of employment was badly written or worse, non-existent. Contracts should outline the job, the duties and responsibilities of the employee, their salary and the way the company operates, avoiding confusion on any of these issues further down the line.

Are your contracts up to speed with the latest employment legislation? All of our contracts of employment are legally up-to-date and are compiled precisely to meet the needs of our clients and their employees, meaning that they would be fully relevant to you and your organisation. Our HR consultancy services can help ensure you are always operating within the law.

Termination of employment

It is not surprising how many employers go wrong in this area of employment law and end up with unfair dismissal claims.

An employee can only claim unfair dismissal after one years’ continuous service. When you dismiss an employee you must be able to say the main reason for dismissal, which must be one of the following:

Employee's capability or qualifications to do the work for which he or she was employed
The employee's conduct
A redundancy
The fact that the employee could not continue to work in the position held without contravening some statutory provision
Some other substantial reason justifying the employee's dismissal from the position they were holding

To reduce the risk of unfair dismissal claims you must have comprehensive disciplinary rules and ensure managers know how to conduct them. In each case you will need to demonstrate that you acted fairly and reasonably.

Capability and qualifications

If your employee is shown to be incompetent or for some reason unable to do the job then you can say the reason for dismissal is due to capability or rather incapability. It also extends to inability to do the job by reason of illness of injury. Therefore sickness may be reason to justify a dismissal.

Conduct

This reason covers any type of misconduct, usually misconduct within their employment. For example fighting, theft, disobedience, bullying, and lateness and failing to follow H & S rules.

Dismissal for conduct outside employment, such as criminal offences, will also provide a valid reason for dismissal. For such a dismissal to be fair, the outside misconduct must usually have an effect on the employment relationship.

Redundancy

Redundancy is a potentially fair reason for dismissing your employee. Redundancy procedure and requirements are complex and full of pitfalls. We would recommend that you contact us to discuss your situation if you are uncertain. We can provide hands-on support through the whole process.

Acting illegally

This situation might arise if for instance the employee is disqualified from driving and their job largely involves driving. The employer can then fairly dismiss them because to allow the employee to drive would be an illegal act.

Some other substantial reason

This category captures more or less anything that does not fit in the others. For example your employee is jailed for 4 years and you cannot keep their employment open for this period.

Employment law is a vast subject and we would highly recommend that you seek advice before making any major decisions, particularly when dismissal is involved.

Compromise Agreements An out of court settlement that minimises the legal fees on both sides.

HR Consultancy We provide consultancy in all areas of HR.

Mediation How mediation can assist in resolving disputes.