On New Year’s Eve, many were focused on celebrating the arrival of whatever 2025 may bring, but behind the scenes the Home Office introduced some significant changes to immigration policy. These updates have been quietly implemented as part of the government’s ongoing ‘crackdown’ on alleged abuse of the UK immigration system, but some could have far-reaching … Continue Reading
Here are another couple of questions that were raised in our recent webinar on Managing Sickness Absence, plus our outline answers. If an employee always uses their full sickness allowance but never goes over this, can we still have meetings and issue warnings, even if there is no evidence of an underlying medical condition? Yes, … Continue Reading
Here are a couple more of the questions – and our outline answers – following our recent webinar on Managing Sickness Absence. What advice would you give where an employee wants to return to work but the employer does not think they are able to? If an employer has concerns about an employee’s fitness to … Continue Reading
During our recent webinar on Managing Sickness Absence, we received a number of questions that we will address in a few blogs over the next few days. First off, a question on obtaining medical advice for employees who have been absent from work due to sickness. For long-term absences, whose advice should be followed – … Continue Reading
Under growing pressure to tackle high net migration figures, the Home Office has published plans to clamp down on visa abuse and exploitation to be implemented through amendments to the Employment Rights Bill. These are aimed at “rogue” employers (particularly within the care sector) but are likely to affect any UK employer with a licence … Continue Reading
Here’s a sentence you don’t see very often, but hats off to the Regulatory Policy Committee for its excoriating review last week of the thinking behind the new Employment Rights Bill. The RPC is a body set up by the Labour government in 2009 as part of its Better Regulation Framework to ensure that the … Continue Reading
As part of its drive to digitise the UK border and immigration system, with effect from today, the UK government has now opened the process for obtaining an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) for eligible non-European nationals who must hold an ETA if travelling to or through the UK from 8 January next year.… Continue Reading
As many sponsors will know, the Home Office offers a priority change of circumstances service, allowing sponsors to request by email the prioritisation of certain Home Office sponsor-related actions (many of which are vital to their being able to progress a visa application). Without this service, the standard processing time for these requests of around … Continue Reading
On 18 November 2024, the Spanish Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling with significant implications for labour and employment relations in Spain. Previously, under the Workers’ Statute, employers were not required to hold a prior hearing for employees in disciplinary dismissal cases, unless the employee was unionized or a legal representative of the employees. However, … Continue Reading
Towards the end of last year, the EAT in De Bank Haycocks v ADP RPO UK Ltd caused a bit of a stir in employment law circles when it suggested that even in smaller-scale redundancy situations (i.e. where collective redundancy consultation obligations are not triggered), there should be “general workforce consultation”. Unhelpfully for employers, it … Continue Reading
I think I speak for many in the employment law community when I say that Section 111A(4) Employment Rights Act has always been something of a disappointment. Here we have a provision which allows the protection of a protected conversation to be blown apart by improper behaviour, a term wholly undefined in the Act, and … Continue Reading
So now we finally have a definitive answer to the question of whether being on maternity leave at the time redundancies are declared gives you priority in the selection process. That answer is no. And yes. As we can say entirely definitively, it all depends. Let us take two scenarios. … Continue Reading
If the technological developments of this decade are to be described in one (or actually, three) words, they will be, without a doubt, be (generative) artificial intelligence. AI is everywhere these days: it’s in the news, it’s on our phones, it’s writing your mum’s Christmas cards … there is no escaping it. But how much … Continue Reading
Before getting into the detail of last week’s Employment Bill, which we will do here separately, a brief review of its press release. Where new law is proposed, this is usually a good starting point from which to judge the quality of the legislation it supports. On that basis, I think it fair to say … Continue Reading
In this mini blog series we will provide an overview of the key aspects to consider when sending one of your employees to and from Germany. First, we will take a look at short term assignments (up to six months) from an inbound and outbound perspective for citizens of certain countries outside the EU.… Continue Reading
Back in August I wrote this piece All the fun of the fair – new tips Code offers bumpy ride to service-sector employers (UK) about the difficulties inherent in trying to mandate “fairness” by statute. I made reference to the then pending non-statutory guidance to supplement the statutory code on how to distribute gratuities under … Continue Reading
“Unfair dismissal rights from Day One”, said the Labour Manifesto, subject always to a probationary period in which terminations will not be challengeable as unfair provided that employers operate “fair and transparent rules and procedures” to provide what Angela Rayner described as “basic rights”. We are now told that the probationary period will be six … Continue Reading
In the third and final part of our series on defamation claims in an HR context, we look at a recent Supreme Court judgment that shines a light on the often difficult issue of the harm caused – and the damages that may awarded – in defamation and malicious falsehood claims. Almost all HR Managers … Continue Reading
There are a multitude of decided cases concerning employees dismissed for exhibiting unattractive beliefs at work, but rather fewer about those sacked for the mere holding of them. Particularly in view of this summer’s riots, that makes the EAT’s decision this month in Thomas -v- Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust a timely and … Continue Reading
So having made a “right to disconnect” for workers a manifesto promise pre-election, the new government must now do the less glamorous work of turning a political sound-bite into actual law. Early reports are not promising – they suggest a requirement to agree a code of conduct with your workforce in relation to out-of-hours contact, … Continue Reading
It is a normal principle of English employment law that clear notice of termination, once given, cannot be retracted without the consent of the other party. The few cases there are on the point relate mostly to employees resigning in a temper or when their judgement is significantly and visibly impaired through illness or drink, … Continue Reading
If the UK introduced a piece of employment law to require all employees to be nice to each other in the workplace, then you would instantly and rightly dismiss it out of hand. What a ridiculous idea – how can you define what it is to be “nice” and without that, how can you determine … Continue Reading
During our recent webinar on Grievances in the Workplace, we received some questions via the chat facility. We addressed two of these here – below we have answered a few more. What advice, guidance, or tips would you give to HR professionals when thinking about using voice recognition technology to take notes of meetings? Now, … Continue Reading
In a recent article on the Employment Law Worldview blog we looked at how a workplace grievance can lead to a defamation claim. The judgment, whilst primarily concerned with whether such a claim could be brought in the first place, also pondered the issues around raising a qualified privilege defence in such circumstances. This is … Continue Reading
