Good morning, Everyone,

Welcome back to this week’s MMD!

This week we take a deep dive into the Employment Rights Bill.

In the podcast Sam and Nils discuss the bill as well as the 20-mph speed limits in Wales.  In addition, Daniel’s video reviews the Employment Rights Bill, providing an update on zero-hour contracts.

In the news we take another look at the Employment Rights Bills and Day One Rights.

THE MMD PODCAST

Episode 41: Speeding Bill

In this week’s episode, Sam discusses the Employment Rights Bill and Nils reviews the effects of the 20-mph speed limit imposed in Wales.

Listen to the episode here: https://spoti.fi/3YwfvUS

THE MEDIA HUB

Zeroing in on Certainty

Our review of the Employment Rights Bill considers the proposal to provide zero- and low-hours workers with guaranteed hours contracts after a defined period of time. We also discuss potential compensation applying where reasonable notice of shift changes or cancellations is not provided by an employer.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/rfta_aLsIOo?si=pSkZJ9MiISS-nkCF

“The biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation”: what employers need to know about “day-one’ rights

The Employment Rights Bill

In their ‘Make Work Pay’ Manifesto, the Labour party pledged to make sweeping changes to employment rights.

On the 10^th of October, the government put their pledge into action with the Employment Rights Bill, describing it as “The biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation”. The Bill covers broad ground, spanning flexible working, so called ‘fire and rehire’ practices, zero-hour contracts and sexual harassment.

However, despite the reporting of the Bill as being of generational significance, many of the details of the Bill are yet to be ironed out, and the implementation of the Bill, other than the immediately effective acts to repeal previous government policy on trade unions, has no date for when it will enter into force.

Due in part to the government’s urge to legislate within 100 days of coming power, many of the details of the Bill will need to be determined by secondary legislation. Though employers may have a great deal of unease about the Bill from the reporting in the press, they should note that much of the ‘generational’ change proposed in the Bill may take up to two years to be introduced. Employers should now take active steps to pre-empt the legislative changes and to prepare for how they can respond the new HR quandaries it may present.

For this week’s MMD, we explore what the Bill’s expansion of “day-one” rights means for employers.

A “Day-one” right to protection from unfair dismissal

Previously, employers have benefitted from the ‘2-year rule’. Unfair dismissal claims have a two-year qualifying period, which means that if an employer wants to terminate someone’s employment in the first two years, so long as they follow fair process and are not discriminatory, they are generally free to do so.

However, the Bill has proposed a “day-one” right to protection from unfair dismissal. This means that if an employer wants to terminate someone’s employment, they will have to provide one of the five ‘fair’ reasons (capability, conduct, redundancy, statutory restriction, or “some other substantial reason”) and follow the associated process.

For example, an employee starts work at an office. On his first day, he is rude to his co-workers, refuses to do his work and instead sits in the break room for the remainder of his shift.

• Under the “2-year rule”, the employer could simply deem his conduct unacceptable and terminate his employment.
• However, with “day-one rights” the employee now has protection from ‘unfair dismissal’, The employer could still dismiss on the grounds of conduct or performance but now, to prevent being accused of an unfair dismissal, they would have to manage him out through a disciplinary or a performance management process. During this process, they would still be expected to pay him, and the process of “fairly” managing him out may take several weeks or months.

Employers should not panic. In lieu of the two-year qualifying period, the government has asserted that the day-one right will not prevent “fair and transparent” dismissal. They have indicated that they will implement longer probationary periods of potentially six or nine months, during which time employers could use a truncated dismissal process.

However, reference to probationary period only comes in the form of a pledge to review probationary periods and is not expressed in the Bill. As such, employers should prepare for the potential that dismissing a new hire, simply because they “weren’t the right fit”, could become much more difficult. This means that they need to make the correct hiring decisions.

In preparation for the Bill coming into force, employers should look to their workforce planning. They need to ensure that they are hiring the ‘right’ people for the job and to be prepared for the fact that if they don’t, their hiring mistakes are likely to be substantially more costly.

Employers should also review their probationary period policies. Whilst the government’s decision on probationary periods is still very much up in the air, probationary periods are likely to be the key to managing new hires. Employers should prepare to strengthen and clarify their probationary periods in anticipation of the Bill coming into force.

In sum, in lieu of the 2-year qualifying period, workforce planning and clearly defined probationary periods are likely to become incredibly important tools for employers.

UPCOMING EVENTS

We have several exciting events and seminars lined up that you won’t want to miss:

• 20^th Nov, 8:30 AM | Weetwood Hall Estate, Leeds
  Mock Tribunal Event on Menopause and Age Discrimination
• 21^st Nov, 8:30 AM | OE Electrics, Wakefield
  Post-Election Update with Wakefield Manufacturing Forum

For more details and how to register please visit our website:

www.chadwicklawrence.co.uk/seminars/business-services-seminars/

Or email: seminars@chadlaw.co.uk