Successful whistleblowing claims can attract heavy compensation for employers to bear, and do not require the claimant to have a minimum period of service. Employees who have made a ‘protected disclosure’ regarding their employer’s malpractices are protected from dismissal and detriment (which is unfavourable treatment short of dismissal). As such, Read more…
We now have an interesting case on how the Tribunals should approach “protected conversations” under section 111A of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and how this might differ from the traditional approach to without prejudice discussions. Since 29 July 2013 s.111A has rendered evidence of pre-termination negotiations inadmissible in unfair Read more…
In September last year the Government concluded its consultation on regulations which will require companies with 250 or more employees to carry out an equal pay review and publish their gender pay gap. After much discussion about how the data will be presented and calculated, the Government has published the Read more…
Not necessarily, according to the recent Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruling in Kelly v Covance Laboratories Ltd, which will be of interest to employers with an increasingly diverse workforce. Covance Laboratories Ltd (R) operated animal testing in their laboratories and had been subject to unwelcome attention from animal rights activists including Read more…
It is common for organisations with HR departments to heavily involve HR in disciplinary, grievance and redundancy processes. Indeed, one might say that is the whole point of having an HR department in the first place. To what extent though should the HR manager confine themselves to advice on procedure Read more…
HR and people managers who regularly deal with disciplinary and grievance issues will be familiar with the situation where an employee requests to be accompanied to an internal hearing by someone who isn’t a trade union representative or work colleague. The usual position is that they do not have this right Read more…
The Government has launched a consultation on regulations which will require companies with 250 or more employees to carry out an equal pay review and publish their gender pay gap. Until now, the government’s power under Section 78 of the Equality Act 2010 (to make regulations requiring mandatory gender pay gap reporting) Read more…
In the latest in a seemingly never ending run of cases involving misconduct through social media, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has recently ruled in British Waterways Broad v Smith, that it was fair to dismiss an employee for derogatory comments made about his employer on Facebook, even when the Read more…
To what extent can a Tribunal look into previous written warnings given to an employee when deciding whether a subsequent dismissal was fair? It is unusual to see the Court of Appeal (CA) overturn an Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decision which upheld the initial decision of the Tribunal, but this Read more…
In July 2013 the Government introduced fees for bringing employment tribunal claims for the first time. You may recall from our last blog about tribunal fees in June 2014 that Rebecca Hutchinson reported a dramatic drop in the number of claims being brought at the tribunals as a consequence of the Read more…