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 staff, 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 and Conditions

You are obliged to give your employees a statement of their terms and conditions. We can assist you in preparing this and consider 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

National Minimum Wage

The following information relates to the standard rates of National Minimum Wage for employees in the standard age ranges (per hour) from 1 April 2023:

Workers over 23:                         £10.42

Workers aged 21 – 22:                 £10.18

Workers aged 18 – 20:                £7.49

Young workers (aged 16-17):     £5.28

Apprentices rate:                         £5.28

 

National Living Wage

For all workers aged 23 and above £10.42 per hour from 1 April 2023.

Working Time regulations

If you expect staff to work long hours, you have to consider 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.

Workers are also entitled to:

  • 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 5.6 weeks paid leave per year.

Dismissal procedures

The ACAS Code of Practice provides guidelines relating to disciplinary and grievance procedures. A failure to follow the ACAS Code of Practice will not be determinate of the fairness of the dismissal.

However, if a finding of unfair dismissal is made, the damages awarded to the employee could be increased by up to 25% if the ACAS Code of Practice has not been followed.

For more information procedures and tribunals, please click here.

Employment Tribunal Awards

Maximum compensatory award is £105,707

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 grounds 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.

Shared parental leave and pay provisions

The right to shared parental leave (SPL) and statutory shared parental pay (ShPP) enables eligible employees who are parents (whether by birth or adoption) to take paid and/or unpaid leave within the first year of their child’s life or the first year after their child’s placement for adoption, provided that the eligible mother or adopter has volunteered to end their maternity leave and/or pay or adoption leave and/or pay early (or has already returned to work early).

Instead, they can then opt into the SPL regime, enabling the balance of their untaken leave and pay to be shared between them and the other eligible parent or adopter or their partner – up to a maximum of 50 weeks of SPL and 37 weeks of ShPP.

SPL is entirely optional and parents or adopters are not obliged to take it. The default position is that the mother or adopter will continue to be entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave or adoption leave (and 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance or statutory adoption pay, if eligible).

SPL is also available to intended parents through surrogacy arrangements where they qualify for adoption leave and/or pay.

Our 2023/24 Pocket Employment Guide contains further information on:

  • Compensation Limits
  • Parental Entitlements
  • Annual Leave  Entitlements
  • Sickness Payments
  • Income tax Rates
  • Income tax Reliefs
  • National insurance

Alternatively, you can download our information leaflets on employment law and employee rights. Or find out more on rates and entitlements for employees and employers.

To arrange an appointment please contact us on 01689 822554 or freephone 0800 358 2757, or email us at employment@thomasdunton.co.uk

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