Employment Library

A Guide to Dealing with Requests for Flexible Working Arrangements
From 6 April 2009, the statutory right to request flexible working arrangements has been extended to parents of children aged 16 and under. Employees with caring responsibilities for children aged up to 6 (18 and under where the child is disabled) and carers...
Adoption - A Woman's Rights
Employers are reminded that women who are planning to adopt a child have similar rights as regards protection from unfavourable treatment as employees who are pregnant. This was illustrated by a landmark decision of the Employment Tribunal (ET). Anna...
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 to make...
Associative Discrimination
In a decision that will have far reaching implications, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled (Coleman v Attridge Law ) that a woman with a disabled child is entitled to protection from discrimination at work on the grounds of her child’s...
Bullying Award Sounds Further Warning Bell for Employers
The award of £828,000 in damages to a Company Secretary Assistant, who endured a long-running campaign of bullying and harassment at the hands of her workmates, serves as a warning to employers who allow such behaviour to go on in the workplace. ...
Changes to the Sex Discrimination Act
In 2007, the former Equal Opportunities Commission brought judicial review proceedings against the Government regarding some of the provisions of the Employment Equality (Sex Discrimination) Regulations 2005 , which made amendments to the Sex...
Collective Redundancy Consultation
Employers should be aware of the potentially serious financial consequences of failing to consult when making collective redundancies. If an employer is proposing to make redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days or...
Controlling Director Is an Employee
A controlling shareholder of a company who is also a director can also be an employee for the purposes of employment protection law. In Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) v 1. Richard Neufeld and 2. Keith Howe , the...
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 record?...
Deliberate Failure to Pay the Minimum Wage
The owners of a Sheffield butcher's shop have been ordered to pay more than £11,000 to two former employees because they failed to pay them the National Minimum Wage (NMW). This is the fourth successful NMW prosecution to date but it is the first in...
Disability Discrimination - Normal Day-to-Day Activities
For the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), a person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their normal day-to-day activities. In Chief Constable of...
Dispute Resolution - The New Regime
In order to establish what it is hoped will be a more flexible system for dealing with workplace disputes, as of 6 April 2009 the Employment Act 2008 repealed the Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedures in their entirety. In their place is a voluntary...
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 involving...
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...
Employer Responsible for Work-Related Suicide
Employees, or their dependants, are entitled to claim damages for injury caused by a workplace accident if: • there was a duty of care owed to the injured person; • that duty was not performed; and • it was reasonably foreseeable...
Employers Warned to Take Noise 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...
Expired Disciplinary Warnings and Unfair Dismissal
The Court of Appeal has overturned the decision of the Employment Tribunal (ET), upheld by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), that an employee was unfairly dismissed because his employer had taken account of an expired disciplinary warning when deciding...
Faulty Work Boots - Employer Not Liable for Employee's Frostbite
The House of Lords ruled, in the case of Fytche v Wincanton Logistics , 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...
Gay Harassment Costs Employer
A former security guard at Heathrow Airport has been awarded £62,525 in compensation after a woman colleague was found to have harassed him on the grounds of his sexual orientation. Reading Employment Tribunal (ET) heard that Allwyn Rondeau, who...
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...
Immigration - A Brief Guide to the Points-Based System
The Points-Based Immigration System (PBS) has replaced the previous routes to work and study in the UK for migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. In addition, the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill, published on 15...
Immigration - A Brief Guide to the Points-Based System
The Points-Based Immigration System (PBS) has replaced the previous routes to work and study in the UK for migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. In addition, the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act , passed on 21 July...
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 - 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 and...
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 with Cancer group and the...

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