Employment Law

As an employer, you will know just how important the wellbeing of your staff can be, but it’s not always easy to implement. At a recent ‘Listen & Learn’ event in Chesterfield, Banner Jones Solicitors’ Employment Law team discussed the importance of having a wellbeing focus in the workplace and, in this article, Head of Employment Law, Katie Ash focusses on the methods of best practice when it comes to ensuring that strategies are all encompassing and effectively implemented.

The ‘gig’ economy is characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work, as opposed to permanent jobs. Depending upon your viewpoint, it is either a positive working environment that offers a great deal of flexibility (for example, employment hours in the control of the individual) or it is a form of worker exploitation with very little protection (for example, lack of paid holidays, sickness benefit and so on).

For a new business the first year is all about survival, but what happens when your business is doing more than just surviving and is starting to flourish? As a business grows it is inevitable that the amount of time that needs to be invested to secure its future is too much for one person, particularly if that person is a working parent wanting to maintain a sensible work-life balance.

Complying with GDPR is the responsibility of every employee so we’ve written some tips on how you can help your business stay compliant.

What is the “gig economy” and how large is it? The gig economy is defined as “a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs”.

A recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights has provided further specific clarification of companies’ responsibilities in respect of their employee email policies. Katie Ash, Head of Employment Law said, “The ECHR ruling in case of Bogdan Bărbulescu could shape extent to which firms can monitor employees’ private communications”. In essence, the court ruling says that not only must a company policy inform employees that they reserve the right to monitor employee emails, but they must also let employees know when they are doing so.

As the Nation waits with baited breath to discover what the Government’s strategy for leaving the EU will be, when it will happen and whether it will be a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ Brexit, many employers are, unsurprisingly, concerned about what the future of employment law will look like. How quickly will it change, what will their obligations be, and what steps will they need to take to ensure compliance?

The Court of Appeal recently ruled that a senior manager’s negligence in failing to ensure that a colleague followed company policy could amount to gross misconduct justifying the manager’s summary dismissal.

A recent study has found that only one in three employees believes their employer cares about their financial wellness.

We’re living in a world where employee benefits are perhaps more varied than ever before.

The Courts recently ruled that an employer can be held liable for an unprovoked assault by one of its employees on a customer if there is a sufficiently close connection between the employee’s job and the wrongful conduct.

A guide for employees with essential information on employment rights, capability, conduct, gross misconduct, redundancy, illegality and automatic unfair dismissals.

Companies are within their rights to monitor the private online activities of their employees when they are in the office.