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Increase in statutory rates and limits on tribunal awards 2024
April sees the increase to the National living and minimum wage rates, minimum rates for agricultural workers, statutory redundancy pay, statutory payments including SSP and limits on tribunal awards.
Advice on Managing Sickness Absence
This guide tries to answer some questions you might ask when an employee is absent from work due to sickness or unauthorised absence.
Antenatal Care
All pregnant employees are entitled to time off to keep appointments for antenatal care made on the advice of a registered medical practitioner, registered midwife or registered health visitor.
A person in a qualifying relationship with the pregnant employee is entitled to unpaid time off work to accompany the expectant mother to two antenatal appointments.
Restraint of Trade
Restraint of trade, also known as ‘restrictive covenants’ help organisations to protect themselves against competitors getting access to their confidential or commercially sensitive information.
Statutory Adoption Pay
One of the qualifying conditions for receipt of SAP is to have average weekly earnings (before tax) of £123 or more (April 2024).
Early Conciliation
The Labour Relations Agency provides an Early Conciliation service following a change in NI employment law which took effect on 27 January 2020. This service helps to resolve workplace disputes in a legally binding way, without the need to take a case to the Industrial or Fair Employment Tribunal. Click below for more information or to make an Early Conciliation notification.
Mediation
An independent mediator can sometimes help resolve grievance or disciplinary issues. There is no charge for using the Labour Relations Agency's mediation service.
The rights and responsibilities involved when it comes to Redundancy (HTML)
For redundancy to be fair there must be a genuine need for redundancy and the employer must follow a fair process in carrying it out. Where there are many employees involved, trade unions and employees should be consulted properly.
Before beginning any redundancy (and during the consultation process), an employer should think about whether it can avoid making redundancies or reduce the number of redundancies. Employers also need to carefully think about how the employees will be chosen for redundancy. If they don’t, they may face claims of unfair dismissal.
The way that staff are chosen should be fair and follow an agreed selection process if the organisation has one. If there isn’t an agreed process in place, the employer must make sure there is no discrimination, that staff are chosen fairly, and in a way that can be checked.
Employee representatives
Employees who act as representatives for consultation about redundancies or business transfers, or are candidates to be representatives of this kind, are entitled to reasonable time off with pay during working hours to perform these functions and to receive appropriate training.
Breach of Contract
If an employer fundamentally breaches a contract of employment, it could lead to the employee resigning. If an employee fundamentally breaches a contract of employment he or she could be dismissed.