Employment Law

Handling an employee’s return to work after maternity leave can feel like a bit of a minefield to most employers. Added to this is the risk of expensive pregnancy and maternity related discrimination claims as well as possible sex discrimination and constructive dismissal claims if they get things wrong.

For many business owners and decision makers, the lockdown restrictions introduced as a result of the Covid-19 crisis have provided them with an unprecedented opportunity to review their operations.

To the dismay of employees, but a decision arguably welcomed by employers, the Supreme Court has recently ruled in cases Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake and Shannon v Rampersad and another (T/A Clifton House Residential Home) that sleep-in shift workers are not ‘working’ when they are asleep. This in turn means that care workers should only be paid the National Minimum Wage hourly rate on sleep-in shifts when they are awake for the purposes of actively working.

Over time, the gap between women’s and men’s median hourly earnings has been narrowing. In fact, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) it has fallen by over a quarter among full-time employees in the last decade.

For many businesses, calculating holiday pay is a straight-forward process. Employers are, within the parameters of the law, able to dictate how many annual leave days or hours a staff member is entitled to.

On the 20th February 2021, the Supreme Court handed down its Judgment in the long awaited Uber case (Uber BV and Others v Aslam and Others). All six Judges unanimously ruled that the Uber drivers were workers, not self-employed contractors and as a result were entitled to basic employment rights like National Minimum Wage, holiday pay and sick pay.

With the country now in its third lockdown, it is clear that the hospitality sector has been hit the hardest and with no sign of hotels, pubs and restaurants reopening soon, employers in this sector will be almost certainly be facing some tough decisions about their staff in the coming weeks and months.

After a lengthy transition period, the UK has now left the EU with a deal agreed. While many possible scenarios have been discussed at length in recent years, until now we have been limited to speculation and conjecture in terms of what the outcome might be. Not to mention how it might affect businesses and, more specifically, employees.

Employers need to protect the mental health of those who work alone. This blog gives you an overview of what you should be considering.

For many, 2020 will go down in history as the year that changed everything, and one of the most significant changes was the way in which we work.

Here, our employment law team cover some of the most commonly asked questions relating to holiday during the pandemic.

As a business owner, we know you try to plan for every possible situation but unfortunately, nobody could have predicted what 2020 had in store.

Over recent weeks there has been a huge amount of emphasis on dealing with the lockdown. Businesses and business owners have worked tirelessly to get their heads around the terms of furlough under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, ensuring staff who need to work can do so remotely, and that the office, factory or other workspace remains safe for those who do need to physically attend the workplace.

As the country continues to grapple with the evolving situation relating to the Covid-19 pandemic, many businesses and business owners are reacting in real time to the government advice relating to social distancing and non-essential travel.

When the first cases of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) were reported last month, it was widely assumed it would run its course relatively quickly, with a minimal number of people affected resulting in little impact on the UK economy.

In a previous article, we looked at the impact of the country’s ageing population on the UK workforce, and the subsequent impact that it was having on employers and businesses large and small.

With an ageing population leading to a need for many people to work longer, coupled with the abolition of the compulsory retirement age, the average age of people leaving the workplace has increased steadily over the last two decades. In fact, the over 50s now make up over a third of the working population.