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Dear Reader,
Welcome to my new-look newsletter, I hope you find it helpful and informative.
As we move into autumn the wonderful world of employment law comes alive once more - as you will see below. Feel free to contact me if would like any more information about any of these news items.
Why not forward this email to any of your contacts who might find it of benefit?
Regards
Peter Etherington  Tel: 01664 430373
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| Hot off the Press... |
| Tribunal Claims 06/07 |
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The Employment Tribunal Service has just published statistics for the year from 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007. The total number of claims at the Tribunal has risen again by 15% to 132,577. In total there were 238,546 different types of claim (the difference being due to some claimants bringing multiple claims - e.g. an unfair dismissal and a sex discrimination claim arising from the same incident). 972 claims were brought between 1 October 2006 and 31 March 2007 on the grounds of age discrimination - the newest piece of employment legislation.
Most employers are taken completely by surprise when receiving a Tribunal claim. In many cases the claim could have been avoided by taking some very simple steps had the employer sought advice at the time.
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| Payment for Holidays |
| Are you using the right calculation? |
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In normal circumstances employees are entitled to be paid for any outstanding days' holiday when they leave employment. The amount of pay per day is frequently disputed when the employee is salaried rather than hourly paid. Some employers have calculated a day's pay as 1/365 of the annual salary but the employee is better off when only working days are used in the calculation (i.e. one day being 1/260 of the annual salary if there are 260 working days in the year). The Employment Appeal Tribunal has recently confirmed, in the case of Yarrow v Edwards Chartered Accountants, that it should be calculated on the basis of the number of working days in the year rather than calendar days.
Good news for employees - not so good for employers! |
| Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedures |
| No defence in an unfair dismissal claim if you do not follow procedures |
| Another recent Employment Appeal Tribunal case, CEX Ltd. v Lewis, has highlighted the importance of following the statutory discipline and dismissal procedure in every case where an employee's contract is to be terminated - not just in the case of dismissal for misconduct.
In this case Mr Lewis was dismissed on the grounds of redundancy. The employer consulted with him and considered alternative employment, but they did not follow the statutory procedure properly and this led to the dismissal being found to be automatically unfair. The argument on appeal was chiefly to do with the amount of compensation to be paid to Mr Lewis, the employer saying that it should be reduced because Mr Lewis would still have been dismissed even if they had followed the procedure, but it is clear that this whole situation could very easily have been avoided had the employer only taken appropriate advice at the time.
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| Sickness Absence - the Rising Cost |
| Are you managing absence levels effectively? |
| A recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development shows that the average time each employee takes off sick per year has risen to 8.4 days (7.2 in the private sector and 10.3 in the public sector). The survey participants believe that 16% of absence is not for genuine reasons. Return to work interviews, trigger mechanisms (i.e. where absence management procedures are triggered automatically when a certain level of absence is reached by an individual) and disciplinary procedures were considered the most effective ways of tackling high levels of absence.
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