employment law 101
TRANSCRIPT
James WillisHead of Employment
stevensdrake solicitors
Employment Law 101
The stuff you absolutelyneed to know
The secret to employment law?
“Do as you would be done to”
The basic rightsThey can be divided into two types:
contractual rights
statutory rights
Contractual rightsThey may come from a range of sources:
written terms
express verbal terms
implied terms
Written contractsThe essentials:
make sure you have one in place
make sure it says what you want and mean it to say
make sure you issue it at the right time
make sure everyone signs it
What to cover Make sure that you include:
parties, job title, hours of work, place of work, pay, holiday, sickness, notice entitlement etc
anything else specific to your business
confidentiality, non-competition etc.
But don’t include too much
Watch out for implied terms Making up for an absent clause
Overruling an express clauses - statutory notice entitlement
Implied terms placing a burden on employees: duty of good faith duty to exercise reasonable skill and care duty to obey lawful orders duty of confidentiality
Implied terms placing a burden on employers: duty to provide a safe system of work implied equality clause mutual trust and confidence
Terminating contracts Look at the contract first
Read the termination provisions carefully
Consider your options: giving full notice payment in lieu of notice (PILON) garden leave
Consider termination / post-termination obligations
Policies and procedures These provide full details of how your HR function works
You probably need at least a few: disciplinary procedure grievance procedure equal opportunities policy
But don’t have more than you can manage!
Statutory rightsThere are a lot, but some of the most important ones are:
unfair dismissal
discrimination
family-friendly rights
paid holiday
national minimum wage
Unfair Dismissal Any employee with 2 (or possibly 1) years’ continuous service has the right not to be unfairly dismissed
A successful claim for unfair dismissal can result in a Basic Award of up to £12,900 a Compensatory Award of up to £72,300 (or more?)
The cost of getting it wrong can be considerable
What is a dismissal?There are 3 types:
express dismissal
unfair constructive dismissal (a fundamental breach of contract by the employer in response to which the employee resigns)
expiry and non-renewal of a fixed-term contract
What makes a dismissal fair?An employer typically needs to prove that:
it had a potentially fair reason for dismissing
it acted reasonably in relying on that reason as justification for dismissal
it adopted a fair process
Potentially fair reasons There are 5 potentially fair reasons for dismissal:
conduct capability redundancy statutory illegality some other substantial reason (SOSR)
Make sure you know which one you are relying on
Watch out for automatically unfair reasons for dismissal (e.g pregnancy, whistleblowing, health and safety)
ReasonablenessIf you have a potentially fair reason for dismissing, the rest is about ‘reasonableness’:
is the decision to dismiss within the ‘band of reasonable responses’?
is the process reasonable?
Discrimination There are numerous types of discrimination - the main ‘protected characteristics’ are:
sex race disability sexual orientation religion or belief age
But don’t forget pregnancy/maternity, marriage/civil partnership and gender reassignment discrimination
DiscriminationIt takes many forms (‘prohibited acts’):
direct discrimination indirect discrimination victimisation harassment discrimination arising from disability failure to make reasonable adjustments
Family friendly rights There are quite a lot:
right to maternity leave and pay
right to adoption leave and pay
right to paternity leave and pay
right to parental leave
right to time off for family emergencies
The list goes on - would a written policy help?
Is that all clear? If not, don’t worry.
It’s not about knowing all the answers. It’s about knowing that there is a question to be asked in the first place.
Questions?
