Employment Update from Hunter Adams – Q1 2022

Welcome to the Quarter 1 Employment Update Bulletin from Hunter Adams.

With the recruitment of staff high on the agenda for many companies, large and small, and competition for staff at its highest in many years, it may be time to review your processes and how attractive you are as an employer. Do you have all your i’s dotted and your t’s crossed in terms of attraction and retention of staff?

As well as your approach to flexibility (where applicable), it’s important to consider your recruitment and onboarding processes including making sure your contracts of employment are up to date (in accordance with April 2020 legislative changes). If you need any support in these areas please get in touch.

End of Mandatory Covid Restrictions

With the ending of Covid restrictions across the home nations, many businesses may ramp up their efforts to return employees to the workplace. This has caused considerable difficulty for some over recent months, and it is important to remember that there may be legitimate reasons for some people to be apprehensive or resistant to return. It is essential to deal with any issues fairly and on a case by case basis to manage any potential risk of discrimination.

It is also important to consider whether you are looking to make a permanent contractual change from a workplace location to a hybrid or fully remote agreement. Where a change is to be made to a contractual term it is vital to ensure appropriate consultation has been undertaken rather than a change being unilaterally enforced.

If you need support or advice in relation to communicating with employees about what comes next, consultation to change or in relation to a specific case, please get in touch to talk things through.

Homeworking

If you haven’t already, 2022 is a good time to review policies and procedures to ensure they are up to date in relation to any home or hybrid working arrangement your company may now have in place.

Although disciplinary rules, misconduct and gross misconduct lists are typically noted as examples and non-exhaustive, it can be helpful to give examples of actions which may be more likely with increased remote working.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – Spotlight on ADHD

ED&I continues to be added to the agenda of more and more businesses large and small over the past few years, potentially due to the understanding of this area and its importance continuing to grow. One of the themes we have seen increase in the past couple of years is an increasing number of enquiries from employers whose employee or applicant has reported a mental health disability and confirmed they have a condition such as ADHD.

Employers understand that they must act appropriately to ensure they do not discriminate but are often concerned about what that means in practice and what the obligations and expectations of them are.

Like many disabilities, the way ADHD affects one person can be very different from the way it affects another, and in particular the way ADHD affects adults typically varies a great deal from the symptoms seen in childhood.

In a number of cases, although the information had been disclosed to employers, they had not taken any proactive action to understand how ADHD may, potentially, affect adults in the workplace, review relevant policies and roll out appropriate awareness training regarding ED&I to support the wider workforce to have a greater appreciation of differences and what may or may not be appropriate in relation to those differences.

If you need any support in this area, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to talk things through with you.

Right to Work Checks

Things have changed again since the Q4 update, and the Home Office has now deferred the end date for the temporary adjustments to right to work document checks to 30 September 2022.  This will mean that employers can continue to ask individuals to send scanned copies or photographs of their identity documents electronically and then hold the originals up to the camera in a virtual meeting so that the two can be checked and compared.

It remains essential that prior to the commencement of work, documents are checked to ensure they are genuine, valid and clearly held by the relevant individual.  Details of the checks should then be recorded on copy documents and retained for the duration of the employment and for 2 years following termination.

The online checking service available at gov.uk can only be used for non UK and Irish citizens and therefore the Home Office has advised that the extension to the period allowing adjusted checks will give employers who wish to move to a permanent digital solution, sufficient time to develop commercial relationships with providers of identity service providers.  Digital checking is not expected to become mandatory from October and employers should put in place appropriate arrangements for either in person or Identification Document Validation Technology (IDVT) checks from that date.

If you would like help to review your current and future right to work checking process, please give us a call.

The Queens Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday

On 6 February 2022, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II reached her 70th anniversary as our monarch.  Part of the celebrations include an additional Bank Holiday on Friday 3 June.  The wording in Statements of Terms and Conditions of Employment (typically referred to as Employment Contract) will clarify whether there is an obligation to provide an additional paid day to employee’s or not.  Even where not obliged to provide an additional day’s paid holiday, some employers are choosing to communicate this additional benefit to their employees after what has been a difficult couple of years for everyone.

If you have any doubts about whether you are obliged to provide an additional day’s leave please get in touch.  Remember to check whether there is more than one contract type circulating in case the holiday clauses are worded differently.

Fixed Term Contracts

Some organisations remain heavily focused on using fixed term contracts (FTCs).  Where FTC’s are used, this is typically in relation to filling roles during a peak period, a project or a longer term family leave cover such as maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.

It is important to remember that there are Fixed term worker regulations in place to prevent employers from treating fixed term employees less favourably than their permanent counterparts.  Also be aware that anyone who has worked continually for you for two years or more on fixed term contracts still have redundancy rights, and after four years of continuous fixed term contracts, individuals are automatically converted to permanent employees.

The implementation of the governments Good Work Plan has seen delays, likely largely to do with the focus on the pandemic in recent years.  However, one of the changes expected to be implemented is the extension from one week to four weeks for the period required in between fixed term contracts in order to break the continuity of employment.

If you would like to discuss the use of fixed term contracts please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Pension

A bill was laid before parliament on 5 January 2022 that would result in a reduction from 22 to 18 as the minimum age for pension auto enrolment.  This bill would also remove the minimum earning threshold of £10,000, resulting in all workers 18 years old or over being enrolled.  If this bill becomes law, it has the potential to have a substantial impact on a huge number of businesses.

Minimum rate increases

April is the time every year when statutory rates increase, including National Minimum Wage (NMW), Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), Capped Redundancy pay and Family Leave.

National Minimum Wage (NMW)

23 years + = National Living Wage (NLW)               £9.50 p/h

21-22 years                                                                        £9.18 p/h

18-20 years                                                                        £6.83 p/h

16-17 years                                                                        £4.81 p/h

Apprentices                                                                       £4.81 p/h

Statutory Family Leave pay (Maternity, Paternity, Shared Parental, Adoption, Parental Bereavement) increases to £156.66 per week

Statutory Sick Pay increases to £99.35 per week.

Capped weekly pay rate – statutory redundancy £571

Employers are named and shamed by the government for paying less than minimum wage, with 191 companies named in 2021 for failing to pay minimum wage to 34,000 workers. This shows the growing risk  minimum wage failures could have on employers in terms not only of financial risk, but also reputational.

It’s important not to be caught out paying below minimum wage if someone moves into a different age bracket with a mid-year birthday.  Minimum wage can also potentially be breached if individuals are working unpaid overtime, so ensure you are reviewing what grade of employee is overtime eligible and monitoring any unpaid overtime hours closely.

Another example is where voluntary deductions from pay for benefits and salary sacrifice schemes inadvertently reduce pay for NMW purposes.

If you would like to discuss a review of overtime eligibility, or any concerns you may have regarding paying NMW in your organisation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Fixed Term Contracts

Some organisations remain heavily focused on using fixed term contracts (FTCs).  Where FTC’s are used, this is typically in relation to filling roles during a peak period, a project or a longer term family leave cover such as maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.

It is important to remember that there are Fixed term worker regulations in place to prevent employers from treating fixed term employees less favourably than their permanent counterparts.  Also be aware that anyone who has worked continually for you for two years or more on fixed term contracts still have redundancy rights, and after four years of continuous fixed term contracts, individuals are automatically converted to permanent employees.

The implementation of the governments Good Work Plan has seen delays, likely largely to do with the focus on the pandemic in recent years.  However, one of the changes expected to be implemented is the extension from one week to four weeks for the period required in between fixed term contracts in order to break the continuity of employment.

If you would like to discuss the use of fixed term contracts please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Employee Wellbeing

We are all witnessing the awful events happening in Ukraine and being affected by this in different amounts and different ways.  You may employee people from Ukraine, individuals may have travelled there for work or holidays in the past, may have friends or family there or you may have ex or current colleagues in the country.  For all these reasons and none, people are struggling to comprehend what is happening to fellow human beings in a democratic country.  In addition, Russian nationals living in the UK may be fearful about how they could be treated because of the actions of the President of their country, and many may have friendships and family connections in Ukraine.

Because we can not know who will be affected and in what ways, the recommended advice and that which is being given by ACAS, is to send messages offering support company wide rather than attempting to target any individual or group.  If you have Employee Assistance Programmes in place, include reminders about this in your messaging.

One way to consider helping people to feel less helpless in the face of this conflict, could be to organise a charity collection to support those being directly affected.  ACAS also raises that Managers should be reminded that, where appropriate, they can adjust deadlines and offer flexibility around working hours for those affected.  Employers can consider relaxing mobile phone policies to ensure that those trying to make contact with friends or relatives can do so regardless of being at work.  Also consider any requests for unpaid special leave or unpaid holiday where these relate to employees who are experiencing stress and anxiety in relation to the safety of loved ones.