Workplace Mediation Resources

The news this week that teachers from the National Education Union had voted for more strike action in England and Wales will have left lots of working parents – and their employers – wondering how they are going to manage if the employee’s child’s school is closed.

For many, the Covid-19 crisis is starting to feel like a distant memory. However, there are still changes to the way we live and work today that were influenced by the restrictions that were put in place. The biggest example in employment law is the shift to working from home.

New legislation is expected to complete its course through parliament giving rise to new requirements on employers to offer alternative positions to those subject to redundancy during pregnancy or in the six months after returning to work and businesses must be ready to respond.

Hospitality workers must receive all gratuities and service charges without deductions in future.

World Dyslexia Awareness Week 2022 will run from the 3rd to the 9th October. This annual event aims to raise awareness of dyslexia amongst the general public, educational institutions, and employers.

Holiday pay for those who work only part of the year and have no contractually set hours should be calculated on the basis of average earnings, the Supreme Court has confirmed. 

Experiencing unfair treatment in the workplace can be distressing and can have an impact on your life both in and out of work. You may be worried about your financial situation if you leave, your performance at work, or suffer from low self-esteem. However, there are laws to protect employees from such treatment, but you must first understand what type of negative treatment you are experiencing under the law. In this article, we look at what bullying in the workplace is, and what you can do if you are a victim.

Age discrimination claims to employment tribunals have risen steeply since the pandemic, and a recent case has highlighted the challenge for employers using a mandatory retirement age.  

At Banner Jones Solicitors, we can help with all aspects of employment law. In this video, we will discuss restrictive covenants and how they can impact you. For more information, watch our video. 

As the UK prepares for the end of the Brexit transition, new laws will be coming into place from 1st January 2021 which will affect businesses, as well as the people who work in them. But what are the expectations on you as an employer?

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”.

What do you need to know? The General Data Protection Regulations (‘GDPR’) come in to force on the 25th May 2018 and whilst the Regulations are new, the principles and requirements are not. The GDPR is an overhaul of the Data Protection Act 1998 (‘DPA’), and extends to the processing of personal data of all data subjects in the whole of the EU. Brexit will not prevent businesses from needing to comply with the Regulations. In practice for those businesses that have already been complying fully with the DPA, they should not need to undertake much work to ensure that they are compliant with the GDPR, and will at the very least have the basics in place.

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.

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.