Ok, I take it back. The Acas Guidance on partners’ rights to accompany a pregnant woman to antenatal classes no longer contains the most pointless piece of official employment relations advice I can ever recall (i.e. that men have no right to attend antenatal appointments). Its short-lived place at the top of that particular tree … Continue Reading
Clearly a quiet Summer over at Acas, to judge by the latest guidance issued this week, this time on Dress Codes. This is a one-page summary of some of the main considerations for an employer in drawing up such a Code – essentially that you ought to have a decent business reason for any restrictions … Continue Reading
Depending on what you read and who you believe, today’s opening-up of eligibility to request flexible working to all employees with six months’ service or more will be: (i) the unleashing of an unstoppable tide of cost, inconvenience and Tribunal claims; or (ii) no big deal. Perhaps by the time you read this, there will … Continue Reading
Braced for Monday? D-Day on the new Flexible Working rules has finally arrived, and with it, some new questions for employers. Whether or not you expect waves of new flexible working applicants storming up your company’s beaches first thing on Monday morning may depend on the nature of your business. A CIPD survey in 2012 … Continue Reading
Acas has now issued its draft Code of Practice on “Handling requests in a reasonable manner to work flexibly” (sic). This anticipates the coming into force on 30 June this year of a general eligibility to request flexible working and the replacement of the old rigid procedures with a blanket obligation on the employer to … Continue Reading
For the next in our series on mental health in the workplace we take a look at some helpful guidance in ACAS’s booklet, “Promoting Positive Mental Health at Work.” Barring a surprising number of typographical clangers, this is actually a pretty good read. The plot is a bit thin, but there are some key messages … Continue Reading
You know that there is something seriously amiss with employment relations in the UK when Acas’ new Guidance on settlement agreements has to run to 83 pages. This is of course on top of its Code of Practice which contains another 11. So that is close to 100 pages dedicated essentially to how to agree … Continue Reading
Part of the Government’s proposals “to reduce the burdens on business” (i.e. the cost to the Government of running the Employment Tribunal system) is Early Conciliation (EC). This requires prospective claimants to contact Acas and be talked through the conciliation process before they can bring a Tribunal claim. When it is launched next year, there … Continue Reading
Fame at last! Whincup, D. appears in the bibliography of a recent ACAS Research Paper into “Workplaces and Social Networking – the implications for employment relation”, hooray!. Aside obviously from its reference to me, the Paper is primarily notable for the details it provides of a survey conducted by MyJobGroup. One thousand individual respondents were … Continue Reading
With the possible exception of most teenagers and all the characters in EastEnders, few people actually relish confrontation. In the workplace this anxiety is compounded by the fear that falling out with a colleague will lead either to an eternity of moody silences and catty remarks, or some Wagnerian undoing in the Employment Tribunal. Little … Continue Reading
Great news for fans of cheap political propaganda this week as the Department for Business Innovation & Skills releases an updated version of its 2011 Employers’ Charter. The original version was a shallow gesture aimed at dispelling the belief common among retired Colonels and other Daily Express readers that UK employment laws are all tilted … Continue Reading
