Employment

2nd July 2024

An employee builds up valuable knowledge and contacts during the time that they work for you, but your commercial interests may be vulnerable if they leave and go on to work for a competitor. It is therefore prudent to take steps to ...

7th May 2024

Calculating holiday allowances can be tricky for any staff which work irregular hours.  In an effort to simplify things, this year the government has introduced changes to the rules on holiday rights as part of reforms to some ...

8th April 2024

Clear pathways and opportunities for promotion together with increasing pay grades can help to improve employee performance, keep staff motivated and help with retaining talent. A fair and consistent practice should also reduce the ...

21st March 2024

Employment law evolves with societal changes and 2024 is a busier year for employment legislation, compared to the last few years. The Government has backed a number of private members’ bills which are now coming into force. In ...

1st February 2024

The right to request flexible working has been around for over 20 years, and in that time eligibility to the right has been extended from parents and carers of young children to all employees after 26 weeks in a job. Access to this ...

30th January 2024

Whether you are setting up a UK office and want your managers to have a general understanding of UK employment law, or you simply want to empower your existing leaders with an overview of employment law, our workshops are just what you ...

8th January 2024

Following Brexit, 1st January 2024 signalled the end of the supremacy of EU law in the UK. What does this mean for employers and employment law? The government has attempted to retain and codify key rights and principles, but it is ...

6th December 2023

On average, each employee in the UK took off 5.7 days due to sickness in 2022, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics. The estimate of working days lost to UK employers due to sickness or injury reached a ...

6th November 2023

As we approach Anti-Bullying Week from 13 to 17 November 2023, the Anti-Bullying Alliance is encouraging the public to ‘help make a noise to stop bullying.’ While the charity’s focus is on bullying in schools, small bullies grow up and ...

21st September 2023

When did you last review or update the policy on social media use for your employees? Does it reflect the way that social media is being used on a day-to-day basis in your organisation? Deploying social media is now deeply embedded in ...

4th September 2023

Due to changes in ways of working since the pandemic or in response to the economic slowdown, some employers are downsizing their premises and asking employees to relocate to new premises or hubs. We take a look at the key contractual, ...

6th July 2023

One story which received a great deal of media coverage earlier this year was the publication of the results of a six-month trial involving around 2,900 workers who had moved to a four-day working week. The organisers of the UK trial ...

15th June 2023

‘Using a settlement agreement to bring an employment relationship to an end, and effectively wipe the slate clean, can be very useful. But, to start the conversation, employers need to be able to speak off the record,’ says Linda ...

11th May 2023

In a policy paper called ‘Smarter Regulation to Grow the Economy’, the Government has set out a number of employment law measures as part of a package of reforms intended to grow the economy and cut costs for businesses. The plan to ...

3rd May 2023

According to the Office for National Statistics, before the Covid pandemic only one in eight working adults reported working from home at least once during the previous seven days. This figure peaked at 49 per cent between April and ...

2nd March 2023

‘Other than the usual April updates to statutory rates, it looks deceptively quiet on the regulatory front for employers. But the end of the year could see the biggest shake-up in employment law for years as a consequence of Brexit,’ ...

9th February 2023

‘Performance management can be challenging and time-consuming,’ according to Linda Wilson a Partner in our employment team. ‘The first challenge is to determine if this is a capability issue that needs to be addressed under a ...

9th January 2023

Have you ever spotted someone wearing a lanyard with a sunflower as a means of indicating that they have a non-visible disability (also known as a hidden or invisible disability)? But not everyone wishes to advertise their disability, ...

1st December 2022

Christmas parties are a great chance for employees to have fun together and for employers to treat their staff as a ‘thankyou’ for their hard work during the year. An unintended consequence can be that employees take this as a chance ...

8th November 2022

Recent advances in technology mean that there are now numerous ways to monitor employees, including via a webcam on staff computers or by checking browser histories, email content and phone records. Productivity-tracking software ...

31st August 2022

‘At some point, many businesses will receive a tribunal claim against them from an employee, former employee or even an applicant,’ says Linda Wilson, Partner and head of the employment law department at MacDonald Oates Solicitors. ...

4th July 2022

We consider a recent Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) case, Sejpal v Rodericks Dental Ltd [2022] EAT 91, which looks at the issue of status, and focuses on whether a dentist had the status of being a worker. The law For an individual ...