Is your business compliant with April Employment Law updates?

Back in December 2018, the government published its Good Work Plan.

The purpose being to bring employment practice in line with the everchanging world of work. More specifically, it aims to tackle the grey areas and blurred boundaries of employment status that is often leveraged by employers within the Gig Economy.

The prevailing aim of the Plan is to erase this ambiguity that employers are able to take advantage of, and ensure that all workers are provided with a fair and decent professional environment.

Part of the Plan comes into force on 6 April 2020, so now is the time to start planning to ensure your business is compliant with these changes to legislation.

Terms of Employment

Currently, an employer has 56 days to provide a new worker/employee with their Terms of Employment. However, from April 2020 this will change, and the employer will have to provide this on, or before the worker’s/employee’s first day of work. Additionally, it is important to note that this will extend to workers, not just employees.

Content within Terms of Employment

In addition to the above, the information provided within the Terms of Employment will be updated and must include:

• details of any probationary period, including its duration and any conditions that apply (such as a shorter notice period) during the probation;
• details of all paid leave, including details of pay for any form of family leave;
• training entitlements and details of compulsory training, including whether the employer will pay for it;
• details of all benefits provided, be they contractual or non-contractual;
• terms relating to any work the worker will be required to complete outside the UK for periods of more than one month.

An important point to note is that the revised Terms of Employment now needs a higher level of detail and removes the scope to rely on supplementary documents such as a handbook.

Reference period increase

The reference period for calculating average weekly pay will change from 12 to 52 weeks. The reasoning for this is so staff are not disadvantaged if they take holiday during quieter times.

Continuity of service

The time required to rely on a break of service is being extended from one week to four weeks. The purpose of this update is to deter employers from abusing the system by dismissing employees and then almost immediately re-engaging them to “reset the clock” on their employment rights, and avoid accusations of unfair dismissal (you must be employed for a requisite qualifying period in order to file for unfair dismissal – two years if you started your job after 6 April 2012, one year if you started you job before 6 April 2012).

Request for a fixed working pattern

After 26 weeks of service, employees and workers will be able to request a fixed working pattern if they are dissatisfied with their current ad-hoc arrangement.

It is important employers are aware of these upcoming changes. For more information on how to prepare your business, contact Deval Patel at dpatel@geraldedelman.com