Shortly before Christmas the thorny issue of excessive bonuses once again hit the headlines, this time as the head of a large housebuilder quit after questions about the size of his £75m bonus.  Enough to pay cash for a super-yacht!  Under bonus arrangements that were undoubtedly agreed at Remuneration Committee level, he got what he…
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10 years ago this month I threw both caution and a final salary pension to the wind in order to run off and create Menzies Law.  I can’t quite believe it’s been that long.  Perhaps that’s why it was only just before this Christmas that I finally updated my LinkedIn profile photo.  What a journey…
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I’ve been working as a Reward consultant for some years now, and before that I was in an in-house Reward role in a reasonable sized organisation.  One of the issues we struggled with then was budget, and how to spend it wisely in order to get the best benefits for our staff. I discovered early…
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Recently I was invited to be a panel member for a World Menopause Day event, hosted by Women of a Certain Stage, looking at how women undergoing the menopause are treated in the workplace. My role was to speak about the employment law elements of this subject.  In preparing for the session I trawled through…
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The Law Commission’s present review of the 3-month limitation period for bringing Employment Tribunal (ET) claims provides an interesting opportunity for reflection. Why 3? Apart from equal pay and redundancy pay claims, where the limitation period has been 6 months for decades, the 3-month window for all other ET claims is something with most of…
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Sexual harassment anywhere is not going away at all. A recent report published by Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee on harassment in public places concluded ‘Sexual harassment pervades the lives of women and girls and is deeply ingrained in our culture’.  Another recent survey found that a third of women had been sexually harassed at…
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Following on from my recent blog, I thought I would look at another aspect of disability discrimination law that makes it unique within the word of discrimination/equality law: the issue of whether the employer (or potential employer in a recruitment scenario) had knowledge of the person’s disability. It’s what you know Disability discrimination differs from…
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Sometimes I feel Job Evaluation is a bit like my favourite tipple – Babycham – although I’ve been a fan of Babycham slightly longer than I have job evaluation (I was always a sucker for anything that came with a cherry on top – cherry bakewells for instance). Like many, I started out on Babycham…
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Almost every week I find myself advising employers on all sorts of aspects of discrimination law. Common scenarios include an employee, very early in their probation period, taking substantial leave from work with possible mental health issue.  Another is ‘what does a reasonable adjustment look like?’ in this or that situation.  In my experience, the…
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I have recently been involved in a 4-car shunt, so I have every sympathy for anyone trying to sort their car insurance just now.  Being in the middle of the shunt and having missed the car in front twice before the 4th car hit us all so hard I finally hit it, I am fortunate…
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