You and your staff
A client guide around employment law
Staff rights
As an employer you should know the rights of your staff – and they may not all be employees. These apply not only to your full and part time employees, but also to those who are self employed, temporary, agency or fixed term workers. They will all have certain rights, whether statutory, or part of their contract.
Even a Company Director may be an employee for the purposes of employment rights. We can advise you on suitable terms for a Director’s Service Contract.
Terms & conditions
You are obliged to give your employees a statement of their terms and conditions. We can assist you in preparing this and considering other issues the law requires to be taken into account, such as:
- Holiday Entitlement
- Data Protection Act
- Health and Safety
- IT/Email Policy
- Grievance Procedure
- Disciplinary Procedure
- Appeals Procedure
- Age Discrimination
Minimum Wage
Do you comply with the Minimum Wage Law?
- £5.73 if aged 22 and over
- £4.77 if 18 – 21 (or if 22 and over, in first 6 months of a job, with a new employer, & receiving accredited training.)
- £3.53 if 16 -17 (but above compulsory school-leaving age)
Working Time Regulations
If you expect your staff to work long hours, have you considered the legal restrictions?
- An average of 48 hours per week is the limit a worker may be required to work, although they may choose to work more if they want to.
- An average of 8 hours in every 24 is the limit that night-workers may be required to work.
- A right to free health assessments for night-workers.
- A right to 11 hours’ rest a day.
- A right to a day off each week.
- A right to an in-work break if the working day is longer than 6 hours.
- A right to 4 weeks’ paid leave per year.
- A right (from 1st October 2007) to additional paid leave for 4r out of 8 Bank holidays per year.
- A right (from 1st April 2009) to additional paid leave for all bank holidays
Employment tribunal awards
Maximum compensatory award is £63,000 Maximum amount for a week’s pay (for calculating basic award or redundancy payments) is £330.00.
Flexible working
If you are receiving requests from employees for flexible working and you feel unable to grant the request due to the needs of the business, a refusal must fall within one or more of the following grounds:
- Burden of additional costs
- Detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demands
- Inability to re-organise work among existing staff
- Inability to recruit additional staff
- Detrimental impact on quality
- Detrimental impact on performance
- Insufficiency of work during periods the employee proposes to work
- Planned structural changes
You are required to write to the employee stating the ground(s) for your refusal and the particular circumstances in which they apply. The employee has the right to make a complaint to the Tribunal if procedures have not been correctly followed, or if refusal has been based upon incorrect facts.
What Thomas Dunton can do for you
We have a team of specialist employment lawyers who take pride in giving straightforward legal advice. We will do our best to advise you and to ensure that everything proceeds in your case as smoothly as possible. Do not at any time be afraid to ask questions. We will give you the clearest information possible about costs and keep you updated about the issues as the matter progresses.
