March 2019 Newsletter

It’s March and in keeping with the spirit of Spring, we’re leaping forward into April to see what changes are in store for employers.  We also update you on the Government’s consultation on confidentiality clauses (or ‘NDA’s) and new guidance on holiday pay for staff with no fixed hours or rates of pay.

In our case update we look at TUPE and the risk of automatic unfair dismissal claims, when it is reasonable to suspend, and whose religion or belief is relevant for a discrimination claim.

What Luke has been doing recently…

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time recently working with several clients on sorting out the differences between their casual/zero-hours workers, casual/zero-hours employees, ‘bank’ workers (or are they bank employees?), their ‘full’ employees and – last but not least – their ‘genuine’ self-employed contractors and consultants.

If you’ve been involved in looking at these contractual arrangements over the years, you will first of all know that it’s a strong-coffee-and-wet-towel situation… and also that there is a paper-thin difference between many of these statuses.  Sometimes the contracts they have are inconsistent and confusing. What’s more, your predecessors may have been less fussy about getting the distinctions right than you would like.

So if you’d like us to review your casual, bank and/or zero-hours workers/employees and contractors/consultants… just let me know!

Luke Menzies
Director, Barrister and Solicitor
email Luke or call 0117 325 0921

 

Workforce Investigations – a case study

Do you have a spare 40 hours?  If you’ve ever been involved in conducting detailed workplace investigations, you’ll know how gruelling and time consuming they can be.  We recently helped one of our clients who was experiencing a number of disciplinary meetings failing to proceed as one would have expected.  Our examination of their investigation process and practice revealed the poor quality of investigations being conducted by managers.  This was leading to a massive pressure on an already busy HR function who were managing the consequences (not to mention the cost and risk implications) of poorly conducted investigations.

–  Read more here about how we created a range of solutions for our client to reduce risk, decrease HR’s workload and upskill managers  –

Lindsey Newman
Business Development Consultant
Email Lindsey or call 0117 325 0928

 

A roundup of this month’s news: 

• Government Reforms (1): April changes – Are you ready?
• Government Reforms (2): Consultation on confidentiality clauses
  
• Guidance: Holiday pay
• Case update (1): TUPE – Beware of automatic unfair dismissal
• Case update (2): Rules of suspension
• Case update (3): Discrimination – Whose religion or belief?