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Health & Safety and duty of employer
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Are you aware of your duties and obligations with regard to health & safety in your workplace and the penalties for non-compliance?
It is the duty of every employer to ensure as far as reasonably practical the health, safety and welfare at work of its employees, and that persons not in his employment are not exposed to risks to their health and safety.
The law requires all employers to have a health & safety policy and to conduct risk assessments. For those with five or more employees this must be documented.
As highlighted in a recent case this should include assessment of the risks associated with 'at work road journeys and other on-the-road activities. For example, that drivers take adequate breaks, they are not driving excessive hours, that time tables or schedules are not such that the driver has no option to exceed speed limits.
Failure to comply is generally a criminal offence and can be extremely disruptive and costly to the company. Call us for advice on your Health & Safety needs.
Changes to statutory paid holidays
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Changes to the Working Time Regulations came into force on 1st October 2007 increasing statutory paid holiday entitlement from the previous 20 days (for those working five days per week) to 28 days phased in over the next two years. That is an extra 4 days from October 2007 and 4 days from October 2008.
If you currently provide workers with the statutory 20 days paid leave, plus 8 public/bank holidays as paid leave, giving a total of 28 days for those working 5 days per week there will be no change.
But if you currently include the 8 public holiday days as part of the 20 days paid annual leave this will need to change.
Your contracts of employment may need to be changed. If you require further information or advice on changing contracts of employment do contact us.
Has a grievance been raised?
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Regulations state that for a formal grievance to be raised the employee has to put their grievance in writing to the employer. That all seems quite straight forward, but be careful, because recent case law has shown that is it not always as obvious as one would think. For example, a grievance can be raised as part of a letter of termination of employment from the employee. If you fail to recognise this and fail to follow the formal grievence procedures any compensation awarded by the tribunal, in upholding a claim by the employee, can be increased by up to 50% as a result of that failure.
To make sure you have the right procedures in place and to advise on any letter from an employee do contact us.
Tribunal cases stilll on the increase
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
The number of claims by employees to the Employment Tribunals still continue to rise including unfair dismissal cases; despite measures to reduce these.
Latest figures by the Employment Trbunals Service show that in the period 2006-7 there were 132,777 claims lodged by employees ( a 15% increase on the previous year) with a significant increase in multiple claims; that is claims involving more than one jurisdiction such as unfair dismissal together with sex discrimination, breach of contract, unlawful deductions etc. Due to the increase in employees' rights there are now over 80 different claims that an employee can make. Still on the increase is the number of unfair dismissal claims, despite the introduction of Regulations which set out procedures for handling internally disciplinary, grievances and dismissals.
At the same time the levels of compensation that can be awarded has increased. The compensatory award is now up to £60,600 (excluding any basic award) with the average for 2006-7 £7974.
Having and following the right procedures makes sense. Contact us for advice.
