In this article we’ll take a look at the upcoming changes to Employment law and what you need to know.<\/p>\n
Pregnant employees or those returning from maternity, adoption, or shared parental leave will be protected from redundancy. It will be the employer\u2019s duty to offer these employees a suitable alternative vacancy in the 18 months after birth or adoption.<\/p>\n
This is not new \u2013 it is effectively an extension of the existing right to be offered a vacancy while on leave and failure to comply would be unfair dismissal and discrimination.<\/p>\n
This states that employees with carer responsibilities will be granted a legal right to take up to 5 days off a year to fulfil their responsibilities. These days will be unpaid and can be taken as full or half days.<\/p>\n
The change is that employees gain the right to request flexible working from day one of employment and an employee can make 2 requests in a year.<\/p>\n
This needs to be put in context \u2013 this is a right to request <\/u>flexible working and not a statutory right to flexible working and employers are able to refuse requests on one or more of a number of recognised business grounds.<\/p>\nPaternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024<\/h2>\n
Employees will be able to take statutory paternity leave at any point in the first year (previously it was only allowed during the first 8 weeks) and will be able to split it up into two separate blocks of one week.<\/p>\n
Increases will take effect from April 1, 2024 as follows<\/p>\n
Age 21 and over – \u00a311.44 (up from \u00a310.42)<\/p>\n
18 \u2013 20 – \u00a38.60 (up from \u00a37.49)<\/p>\n
16 \u2013 17 and apprentices – \u00a36.40 (up from \u00a35.28)<\/p>\n
There are more changes which will happen later in the year and these include<\/p>\n
Strengthened provisions in the Equality Act 2010 –\u00a0the purpose of these Regulations is to include certain aspects of EU law within the Equality Act 2010, which would otherwise have been revoked at the end of 2023. They extend protection against direct discrimination relating to pregnancy, maternity and breastfeeding and indirect discrimination by association (where someone without a protected characteristic suffers discrimination because of their association with someone with a protected characteristic).<\/p>\n
Indirect discrimination by association is recognised currently but this gives additional protection and employers will have to take particular care to avoid claims for indirect discrimination by association when considering requests for home or flexible working, where employees have caring responsibilities.<\/p>\n
\u2013 likely to come into force in October 2024. It imposes a duty of employers to take reasonable steps\u2019<\/em>\u00a0rather than \u2018all reasonable steps\u2019<\/em> to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace and imposes an obligation on employers to be proactive in tackling sexual harassment. If this duty is found to be breached, tribunals have the power to increase any compensation due by 25%. In the background, we have seen press coverage of sexual harassment suffered by staff at McDonalds so we can be sure that this issue will always attract headlines.<\/p>\n \u2013 this is a lawful process used to change and vary terms and conditions of employment. It is known that there will be plans to publish the final version of its Code of Practice on dismissal and re-engagement. The Code is designed to govern the conduct of employers planning to change employees\u2019 terms and conditions by dismissing and then rehiring them.<\/p>\n The consultation was published in November 2023. The main thrust of the proposals is to encourage employers to make more use of Occupational Health (OH) to support their workforce.<\/p>\n The intention is to develop an understanding of Occupational Health and the development of a long-term, strategic approach to embedding OH in the workplace.<\/p>\n Many Companies already use the services of OH to facilitate returns to work, support with the development of reasonable adjustments as well as sourcing OH reports for dealing with employees with long terms absence issues where there is an underlying issue.<\/p>\n\u201cFire and rehire\u201d<\/h2>\n
Occupational Health \u2013 an Occupational Health: Working Better<\/h2>\n