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 two (or actually, three) words, they will be, without a doubt, (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 (gen)AI … 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
How does the FCA expect a firm to go about investigating allegations of NFM? If someone’s non-financial misconduct breaches the Conduct Rules, does that mean they need to be dismissed? These questions arise frequently in the HR and Compliance departments of FCA and PRA regulated businesses. Perhaps that is because, despite clearly articulating its expectations … Continue Reading
During our recent webinar on Grievances in the Workplace, we received some questions via the chat facility that we will address in a couple of blogs over the next few weeks. First off, we have a couple of questions about the investigation process. We have a situation where the initial grievance meeting has been adjourned, … Continue Reading
So you employ an individual on a series of fixed term contracts and after four years they seek a declaration that they should have been given a permanent employee job doing basically the same thing. Does that sound fair? Well, in Lobo v University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the Employment Appeal Tribunal said, … Continue Reading
If the Financial Conduct Authority is to extend or confirm (depending on what you read) its remit to include non-financial misconduct and specifically bullying and harassment in its fitness and propriety assessment, then the potentially career-ending consequences for those concerned require that we are all very clear as to what those terms mean.… Continue Reading
“Non-financial misconduct is misconduct, plain and simple” – that is what Christopher Woolard (former FCA director) said in 2018. Except that as it turns out, fairly predictably when dealing with shades of human behaviour, it’s not that plain, nor that simple. With a lack of guidance on what non-financial misconduct (NFM) actually is, firms have thus … Continue Reading
