Whether you hold the party on or off Company premises, Company rules and procedures still apply. You need to ensure that this is clearly communicated to staff prior to the event. If you are faced with a member of staff breaching your rules of conduct at the event then your normal disciplinary procedures would apply.
As an employer you need to think about how your employees will get home after the event. You have a duty of care to ensure that they do not drive home if they have been drinking, for example ensuring there are adequate alternative methods of transport available from the event such as late night buses and taxis. You would not be expected to pay for these but should ensure they are readily available.
If there is any damage to the venue by an employee, then as the organiser/ employer you may be liable to any costs associated as a result of the damage. However, this would be considered as misconduct and therefore your disciplinary rules would once again apply.
In summary, as an employer you have a duty of care to ensure the safety of your employees and can be liable for the conduct of your employees whilst at a Company event. Your employees have a duty to observe the Company rules and behave accordingly.
With the recent bad weather causing a headache for employees to get into work, employers need to adopt a fair and consistent policy when it comes to dealing with absence caused by extreme weather conditions or disruptions to public transport.
The responsibility lies firmly with your employees to get to work regardless of weather conditions or other disruptions. Therefore unless there is a contractual obligation on you to provide transport for your employees to and from their place of work, then if they are unable to attend work in these circumstances, you are under no obligation to pay them.
In an ideal world employers would have a policy on how to deal with these unusual situations to ensure all staff know who to report to if they are unable to get to work, and also what options are available to them.
If an employee's normal mode of transport cannot be used in these circumstances, you should first encourage the employee to explore alternative means of safe transport. If this is not possible then consideration should be given whether the employee could usefully work from home until the weather situation improves.
If neither of these are viable options, then employers need to ensure that employees know that any time off work in these circumstances will be unpaid. The final option is that employees can request to take the time off as paid annual leave.
Different rules would apply if the business chose to close due to the severe weather conditions and your employees were ready and able to attend work. In this circumstance normal wages should be paid unless you have a contractual provision which allows you to consider this period an unpaid lay off period.
Interviewing candidates is an important skill and, while you may think that relying on your “gut instinct” is best, careful planning and thought should ensure a productive and fair selection interview that tests the candidate’s ability to do the job.
You are obliged to make any reasonable adjustments that may be required to enable a disabled candidate to attend an interview and, under these circumstances, it would be lawful for you to ask pre employment health questions to ascertain if adjustments are needed.
The purpose of the interview is to satisfy you as to whether the person has the skills and abilities to do the job so your interview questions must be prepared to test these. One technique is to use competency questions, where you ask the candidate to tell you about a past experience when they had to use skills relevant to the job they are applying for. The answers given can tell you about how the candidate behaved in certain situations and the decisions they made.
As a guide, you should spend 20-30% of the time talking and the rest actively listening to the candidate. Questions should be predominantly “open” (i.e. require explanation rather than a one word response). Closed questions should only be used to control the interview.
You should use the same questions for all candidates being interviewed for the same role and keep careful notes throughout the interview so that you can refer back to them. This is particularly important when interviewing several candidates so that you can distinguish between them. You can also score each candidate on their responses to each question for comparison purposes. Additionally, these notes will provide evidence, if challenged, to show objective and fair reasons as to why a candidate was not selected for the job.
The choice of who to recruit into your organisation is one of the most important you can make, if not the most important. Getting this process wrong can result in untold cost and time in sorting out the problems it can cause, such as under performance, high staff turnover, loss of service quality, discontent and sometimes disciplinary action.
On the other hand, getting it right first time means you select candidates suited to the job and the organisation, and you are more likely to see better quality and productivity as a result along with lower staff turnover and ultimately higher profitability.
First and foremost, it is important that you set out the key tasks and responsibilities of the role within a job description. Secondly, a person specification can help you identify the skills, experience and disposition of the ideal person to fulfil the role. It is extremely important to take enough time on this stage as it is critical to finding the right person for the job.
At every stage of the recruitment and selection process, care must be taken not to breach any employment laws, particularly in relation to discrimination. It is illegal to discriminate against a potential candidate on the basis of race, religion/belief, age, sex, sexual orientation or disability. Care must be taken with;
the wording of your job advertisements; short listing candidates; the interview process; how you apply your selection criteria; requesting evidence of the right to work in the UK; any requirement to answer any pre-employment medical questions (except in certain circumstances)
With the average unfair dismissal award now costing £8,000 you cannot afford not to deal with your employee problems seriously. Not only does a successful unfair dismissal claim hit your pockets financially with award settlements and legal costs but it also costs you management time in preparing for and defending a claim and also may cost you the reputation of the Company.
There are many simple steps you can take to help reduce or eliminate ex employees from being successful in making a claim against you. Aside from having a fair reason to dismiss an employee, you must be able to demonstrate that fair procedures were followed with any discipline or grievance issue. Employment Tribunals will judge the fairness of a dismissal against the standards set out in the ACAS Code of Practice – Discipline and Grievance.
Different types of evidence will also support your case in defending a claim and it is therefore vitally important that records are kept, not only to assist with helping you achieve a fair and accurate decision but these records will provide proof that the evidence is reliable and factual. Documents such as terms and conditions of employment, minutes of meetings, witness statements and copies of letters confirming disciplinary action or performance plans can help with this.
Training your managers in these simple steps not only can save you time and money in the long term but also help promote your business as a fair and reputable employer.
Whether you employ one person or several hundred people your obligations towards your employees and their employment rights remain the same.
Employment litigation can be very costly to a business with an average unfair dismissal claim costing employers £8,000 in award payments in 2008/9. This figure does not include the hidden costs associated with defending the claim such as the management time lost in preparing a response to a claim along with any legal advice and representation at Tribunal. Claims for discrimination awards have no ceiling and can cost businesses tens of thousands of pounds if successful at Tribunal.
Managers who have people management responsibilities need to ensure they have a practical understanding of the key areas of employment law to ensure they are compliant within the workplace.
hjspeople will be running their Basic Employment Law workshop which provides an introduction into how the law is made along with the contractual relationship between employers and employees and also considers employee rights and the law against discrimination. Finally, we will cover your obligations under Health and Safety law and how to resolve employment disputes.
Our workshops are run from a practical and commercial perspective and our aim is to support managers and business owners in the efficient and profitable running of their businesses.
Our next Basic Employment Law workshop will be held on Wednesday 17 November 2010 at a local venue in Southampton and will cost £350.00 per person including all course materials, refreshments and lunch.
National minimum wage rate increases
Each October the national minimum wage rates are increased. Additionally, this year there will be a change in the age classification for the adult minimum wage band. The adult worker rate now includes 21 year olds where previously this band started at age 22. This year also sees the introduction of the apprentice minimum wage for apprentices under 19 or apprentices 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeships.
The rates and new age bands are as follows
| New minimum rate per hour | Adult workers (age 21 and above) |
£5.93 |
Workers aged 18 to 20 |
£4.92 |
Workers aged 16 to 17 |
£3.64 |
Apprentices under 19, or apprentices 19 and over in first year of apprenticeship |
£2.50 |
Single Equality Act introduced
This important piece of legislation will harmonise and replace previous legislation promoting equality and whilst employer’s obligations remain largely the same, the Act will now make it easier for employers and employees to understand their legal rights and obligations.
The Act will introduce a number of new employment measures and employers are urged to check their policies and procedures are reviewed in light of the changes.
With the recent abolition of the default retirement age, employers need to be aware that they will be unable to lawfully retire employees at 65 after 30 September 2011 unless they can objectively justify operating a compulsory retirement age. As it stands, the law states that notification of retirement must be given between 6 and 12 months before the intended retirement date.
Therefore, it would be sensible to identify now from your workforce if you have any employees who are reaching the default retirement age in the next 12 months up to 30 September 2011 to ensure you will still be able to lawfully retire them.
The statutory retirement procedure will be repealed from 6 April 2011 so no new notices of retirement can be issued under this procedure from this date.
Therefore, provided notification of their retirement is given by 5 April 2011 and they will retire before the 30 September 2011, then you can still follow the statutory retirement procedure and retire employees lawfully without running the risk of discriminating on the grounds of age. However, please remember that you have a duty to consider any request to work beyond retirement age.
For an employee who turns 65 on or after 1 October 2011, you will be unable to terminate their employment by reason of retirement unless you can objectively justify operating a compulsory retirement age - that is that you must be able to show that it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
Once the statutory retirement procedure has been abolished, you will only be able to rely on one of the potentially fair reasons for dismissal; capability, conduct, redundancy, illegality or some other substantial reason and ensure you follow a fair procedure under your contractual disciplinary and dismissal procedures.
Whilst labour turnover can be healthy for an organisation it can also be very costly. There are costs associated with the payroll and HR administration of the leaver, direct costs of recruiting a replacement, management costs in time spent interviewing candidates, costs associated with the induction and training of a new employee and loss of productivity from those leaving and until a new employee is fully trained.
Exit interviews are a simple and effective way to establish why people are leaving. Wherever possible, the exit interview should take place a short time after employees hand in their notice, in private and the interviewer should not be the employee’s direct manager or someone who may be required to write them a reference in the future.
You should explain the purpose of the interview and assure confidentiality. Ask questions which will aid you in establishing the real reasons and influences behind an employee’s decision to leave your business.
If trends are identified as a result, then it would be appropriate for you to consider possible changes to working conditions, terms and conditions, benefits, internal processes and those issues that are specific to departments, including management styles.
If an employee is reluctant to attend an exit interview then you may want to consider an alternative such as an exit questionnaire. Ideally, the business should have a policy informing employees that they may be asked to attend an exit interview to enable the Company to learn how to improve the working experience for staff.
The new fit note or ‘Statement of Fitness for Work’ has introduced a conceptual change on managing employee sickness absence by focusing on the work employees can do rather than what they can’t do.
A doctor will give a ‘may be fit for work’ statement if they think that their patient’s health condition may allow them to work if they get suitable support from their employer. For example, a phased return to work, altered hours, amended duties or workplace adaptations.
If you are unable to make any of the recommended adjustments, you should treat the statement as if your employee remains unfit for work.
However, it is very important to note that your obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 have not changed and this act makes it unlawful for employers to discriminate against employees who have disabilities.
Therefore, if your employee’s condition is defined as "a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities", you have a duty to make reasonable adjustments in order to accommodate the needs of an employee with a disability. As a minimum you should be proactive in assessing and making suggestions as what adjustments might be helpful, along with consulting with your employee in order to establish their views. We would also recommend that you obtain, with agreement, a full and proper assessment from a doctor for guidance on the employee's condition and its effects, in order to establish what reasonable adjustments may be made to eliminate any discriminatory effect in the workplace.
Travel delays have been at the forefront of the news in recent months due to the volcanic ash situation and you would need to agree a sensible approach with affected employees on how to account for their delay back to work. Granting the time off as annual leave entitlement or unpaid leave are clearly the most sensible options. However, whichever policy you adopt, you should ensure that you extend it to any employee who is affected, to retain fairness and consistency in your approach.
If an employee is delayed returning from holiday due to an unfortunate situation, such as their partner or travelling companion being hospitalised, then you would also want to consider either granting annual or unpaid leave. However, if the Company has a policy on dealing with emergencies then you could grant the additional time off under this policy – paid or unpaid depending on the policy. You will also need to have a conversation with your employee regarding how best to deal with unavoidable unfortunate events such as these.
Finally, if an employee falls ill on holiday and subsequently does not return to work after their holiday has ended, then I would recommend that you follow your standard reporting procedure and requirements for supporting medical information. This includes the possibility of requesting a doctor's certificate while an employee is on holiday (even if abroad) certifying that, at that time, the employee was incapable of work. You should be aware that an employee may also request that their holiday be classed as sick leave if their illness started during their holiday. This would result in the employee being paid sick pay during this time and requesting they take their annual leave at another time.
If you are considering employing school age children or young workers over the holiday period then there are different restrictions applying to both categories.
In law, a "child" is a person who is not over "compulsory school age"; who has not yet lawfully left school. Most local authority by-laws prohibit the employment of school age children in occupations such as hotel kitchens, fish and chip shops and restaurants. I would urge you to contact your local education authority to see if your business would be prohibited from employing school age children.
The employment of school age children is regulated and under the legislation:
no child may be employed if they are under the age of 14 They may not be employed for more than 35 hours (or, if under 15, for more than 25 hours) in any one week where the child is not required to attend school They cannot be employed before 7.00 am or after 7.00 pm They may not be employed for more than eight hours (or, if under 15, for more than five hours) on any day or for more than two hours on a Sunday They must receive a rest break lasting at least one hour if they work for more than four consecutive hours.
Note; these apply when the child is not required to attend school, such as during school holiday periods. Please be aware that the restrictions differ during term time.
Before employing a school age child you must apply to the relevant local education authority for an Employment Certificate.
Young workers are those who are over the minimum school leaving age but have not yet reached the age of 18. You must ensure that young workers receive a 30 minute rest period if they are required to work over 4 and half hours in any one shift and also when assessing any risks to health and safety take into account lack of experience, lack of awareness of risk and lack of maturity.
We recommend as a minimum that you ensure you are able to provide your employees with a written statement of particulars of employment or ‘contract of employment’. This is a legal requirement and must be provided within 2 months of them starting employment with you.
Employees are also entitled to access to certain policies and procedures, such as the rules on discipline and grievance and any conditions relating to sickness or injury, including sick pay.
In addition, you must check that your employees are eligible to work in the UK. If you hire an illegal worker then you could face a £10,000 fine for each worker. Certain documents confirm an individual’s eligibility to work in the UK and if you need to check what they are, a full list can be found on our homepage.
You should look at the rate of pay which you are proposing to pay any workers as you will need to ensure you comply with the national minimum wage rates. These rates, which are banded dependent on age and increase in October each year can also be found on our website. You must ensure that these rates are met or exceeded in order to be compliant as individuals have a right to make a claim for non payment of the national minimum wage.
You also have obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. It is your duty to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of your employees. Will your employees be provided with Health and Safety instructions? Are your risk assessments current and action plans in place? If your employees are expected to use a computer, will they be given a display screen assessment?
The grievance procedure is the formal process by which an employee may raise any complaints about the behaviour of the employer towards them. Employees have a statutory right to access a grievance procedure and there is an implied duty for employers to reasonably and promptly afford a reasonable opportunity to their employees to obtain redress of any grievance they may have. Employees therefore are entitled to have their grievances dealt with, and any failure on the employer's part to deal with a genuine grievance would potentially give the employee the right to resign and claim constructive dismissal.
Since the statutory discipline and grievance procedures were repealed in April 2009, guidance should now be sought from the new Acas code and guidelines which apply to discipline and grievance situations. The new Acas code is used as a benchmark by employment tribunals when considering the fairness or otherwise of an employer's procedure and actions.
It is in the interest of all concerned to try and resolve any problems informally in the first instance and managers should be trained in how to deal with problems at an early stage to stop them escalating.
If any problem is unable to be resolved informally then employees should be given the opportunity to submit a formal grievance in writing and the employer must respond by arranging a meeting with the employee at which the employee has a right to be accompanied by a work colleague or trade union official. The employee’s complaint should be fully investigated by the employer before a response is given in writing to the employee along with the right to appeal against the decision.
If an employee appeals against the decision then the same process should take place but with a more senior manager hearing the appeal. Any decision made as a result of the appeal is the final stage of the grievance procedure.
There is no legal requirement for you to grant time off to your staff to watch the World Cup matches; it is up to you whether or not you want to consider it, taking into account the needs of your business. There are a number of options open to you to ensure that your business is not adversely affected during the 4 weeks of the competition. - Operate a "business as usual" approach whereby staff who want to take time off must request annual leave in the usual way. However, you may want to consider late requests for annual leave particularly if the employee’s national team does well during the later stages of the competition.
- Explore the possibility of screening matches in the workplace. This could lead to the business benefiting from increased motivation and improved morale. However, you would need to ensure that non-English staff are given the same flexibility to watch their national teams and be aware of the need to keep football-free areas for those not interested in the World Cup.
- Be flexible - allowing staff to work around the matches that they want to watch. An ideal opportunity for staff to use any time off in lieu owed by allowing flexible start or finish times or offering extended lunch breaks.
- Ensure staff are aware of any specific rules or procedures which you may want to put in place to deal with any unauthorised absence. For example, staff that are off sick could be required to notify their absence to a specific person. This would raise awareness that you are monitoring unauthorised absence closely during the World Cup period and would assist with identifying absence patterns on match days. Without fail, return to work interviews should be conducted as soon as the employee returns to work to record the reason for their absence.
These approaches, together with advance warning to staff that unauthorised absences without a good reason and sickness absences that are not genuine will be dealt with under your controlling unauthorised absence procedures, should help to discourage absenteeism during the World Cup period.
From 6 April 2010 the old sick note changed to become a ‘’Statement of Fitness for Work’ form or ‘Fit Note’.
Under the sick note system, doctors could only advise their patient on whether their health condition meant that they should or should not work.
However, many people with health conditions can, with some basic support from their employer, work as they recover from their condition. To help more people get the support they need to get back to work the new fit note system means that doctors can advise whether employees are either:
unfit for work; or may be fit for work
A doctor will give a ‘may be fit for work’ statement if they think that their patient’s health condition may allow them to work if they get suitable support from their employer. For example, a phased return to work, altered hours, amended duties or workplace adaptations. If it is not possible for employers to provide the support to enable employees to return to work then the statement should be treated as if the doctor had advised the employee was unfit for work. (Note – obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act have not changed). If, however an employee is too ill to work the doctor will advise this just like with the old sick note and will give a ‘unfit for work’ statement.
The new fit note system can provide real benefits to both employees and the business and should form a fundamental part of your sickness absence procedures.
Employers have general legal responsibilities for the health and safety of employees at work and should undertake occupational stress risk assessments.
Under most circumstances, an employer can assume that employees are able to withstand the normal pressures of work. However, where there are situations that indicate stress, for example, an employee being off sick or making it clear to the employer that they are under extreme pressure, then the employer should take "reasonably practicable" steps to investigate and take action as necessary. The actions must be of substance and could include work re-arrangement, training or counselling but might also include redeployment or even demotion or dismissal if these were the only reasonable steps that could be taken.
Prevention will always be better than cure and in order to manage and prevent work-related stress from happening, employers can look at the following six areas;
- demands
- control
- support
- relationships
- role
- change
Employees will be able to indicate that they are able to cope with the demands of their jobs and that they are able to have a say about the way they do their work. They will be able to indicate that they receive adequate information and support from their colleagues and superiors and are not subjected to unacceptable behaviours, eg bullying at work. They should be engaged with frequently when the organisation goes through any change and there must be systems in place locally to respond to any individual concerns.
Under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 it is a criminal offence for an employer to employ a person who is subject to immigration control and does not have the right to work in the UK. Employers who negligently hire illegal workers could face a maximum fine of £10,000 for each illegal worker found at the business.
The easiest way to ensure that you are recruiting individuals who have the right to work in the UK is to make your offer of employment subject to original documents being produced to demonstrate their eligibility to work in the UK. Once these documents have been produced and you are satisfied that the individual has the right to work in the UK then a copy of the document should be kept securely in their personal file. However, just because a person is not able to produce the appropriate listed document(s), it is not safe to assume that he or she is living or working in the UK illegally. He or she should be referred to the UK Border Agency and it is at the employers discretion if they would like to hold the vacancy whilst this process takes its course.
In order to avoid unlawful discrimination in recruitment practice, you should not make assumptions about a person's right to work or immigration status on the basis of their colour, race, nationality, or ethnic or national origins, or the length of time they have been resident in the UK and therefore all employees are required to prove their eligibility to work in the UK.
Documents which are accepted to ensure eligibility to work in the UK fall into two categories - List A which provides ongoing eligibility to work in the UK and List B which provides limited eligibility to work in the UK for up to 12 months. You can download these lists from our website www.hjspeople.co.uk
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