Title of unit/s | Employment Law |
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Unit No/s | 5EML |
Assessment method | Creation of a 30-minute training programme (Slide Deck) |
Learning outcomes:On completion of this unit, learners will:1 Understand the purpose of employment regulation and the way it is enforced in practice. 2 Know how to manage recruitment and selection activities lawfully. 3 Know how to manage change and reorganisation lawfully. 4 Know how to manage issues relating to pay and working time lawfully. 5 Be able to ensure that staff are treated lawfully when they are at work. 6 Know how to manage performance and disciplinary matters lawfully. | |
You are the HR Adviser in an organisation and you have been asked to put together a 30 minute training session for a group of newly recruited line managers. You can presume that your audience has minimal experience of managing people, and no experience of employment law. The presentation will form part of their induction process, and the brief is to give an overview of the legal issues that they must understand when managing people. Specifically, you must cover: | |
1. The aims and objectives of employment law. You must include the role of the Employment Tribunal and other courts in the UK in enforcing the law, and the ways of settling disputes before and during the Employment Tribunal process. | 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 |
2. The importance of ensuring that the recruitment and selection process of new employees is fair. In addressing this point you must outline the key issues relating to discrimination and explain how a contract of employment is created. | 2.1, 2.2 |
3. The law to be aware of as organisations change and develop. In addressing this you must highlight the processes to be followed when varying a contract of employment, managing redundancies and addressing a transfer of undertaking. | 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 |
4. The key rights that employees have during employment. Here you must cover working time, pay (including equal pay) and family friendly rights specifically including maternity and paternity rights. Highlight the areas that you think are most important for line managers to know about. There should be an example of at least two implied duties and an explanation of what happens when these duties are breached (which will include reference to constructive dismissal). | 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 |
5. The protection that the law gives to employees. Here your employer has asked you to specifically address health and safety, the implied duties of the contract of employment and freedom of association | 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 |
6. How the law requires disciplinary situations relating to capability and conduct to be addressed. You must explain the procedures that line managers have to follow. You must explain the right of employees to be accompanied during formal disciplinary or grievance hearings. | 6.1, 6.2 |
Evidence to be producedYou are required to produce:A slide deck suitable for the task/audience with accompanying notes in sufficient detail to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding Word limit: the notes to accompany the presentation should not be more than 3000 words. There should be a maximum of 15 slides in the presentation. | |
Please note you will NOT be required to present thisYou should relate academic concepts, theories and professional practice to the way organisations operate, in a critical and informed way, and with reference to key texts, articles and other publications and by using organisational examples for illustration. When referring to the law indicate the relevant legislation and cite any case law on key legal issues.All reference sources should be acknowledged correctly and a bibliography provided where appropriate (these should be excluded from the word count). |
According to Avado (2020), employment law is a collection of laws and rules that regulates the relationship between employers and employees in an organization. The law governs what employers can ask their employees to do, what employers can expect from employees and the rights and freedoms of employees at work.
As per the European law, the purpose of employment law in organization incudes:
Employment tribunals deal with claims raised by employees against their employers. For instance, claims relating to unfair and wrongful dismissal, unequal pay, discrimination or wage deductions.
There are two categories of Employment Law in the UK; Private and Civil law. Complaints and claims raised by employees such as discrimination, unequal pay and unfair dismissals by their employers are heard by the employment tribunal whereas the ordinary civil courts deal with cases such as accidents in the workplace.
(CIPD, 2020)
According to Pearson’s Chamber Law, 2017 an employee is entitled to raise a claim after termination of an employment contract and the claim must be made within three months of the termination. The Tribunal ensures the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) code is followed by both the employer and the employee. Tribunals are obliged by the decisions of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), Supreme Court, and Court of appeal to consider any new cases.
The UK justice system supports appeals against decisions made to the employment appeal tribunal. For instance, Pimlico vs. Smith case, “An appeal against a decision that the claimant, was claiming for disability discrimination, was a worker rather than self-employed. Appeal dismissed” (Employment Case Update, 2017).
According to the American .bar.org, (2020), dispute resolution involves all those processes that can be used to resolve a conflict, claim or dispute. Dispute resolution in every organization is essential to enhance productivity and efficiency among employees and employers in an organization. There are various ways adopted to settle disputes within organizations such as;
Arbitration involves independent individual deciding cases of unfair dismissal, makes conclusive decisions on a dispute, settles individual disputes and also solves all employment disputes within an organization. (Acas.org.uk, 2020)
The pros of arbitration are:
The cons of arbitration are:
Is a technique used for resolving disputes in an organization between employers and employees. According to the CIPD, mediation has the capacity to: boost communication and better relationship among employees, assist workers to emphasize with each other’s emotions and situations and lastly, assisting parties involved in conflicts to hold open conversation in settling their claims and disputes.
The pros of mediation are:
The cons of mediation are:
In the UK all forms of discrimination in the workplace by employers and employees are managed by the Equality Act 2010. This Equality act 2010 has nine characteristics that it protects; maternity leave, disability, race, religion, gender realignment, marriage sex and sexual orientation (Avado, 2020)
Employers are advised through ACAS to avoid any form of discrimination relating to equality act, 2010 especially during recruitment, selection and job advertising process of new employees (Acas.or.uk)
Discrimination under Equality Act, 2010 can take any of the following forms;
For instance, during recruitment of new workers, employers should not discriminate against any of the protected characteristics under the equality act. Employers must not inquire about private matters of the interviewee such as the matrimonial status and ethnic customs. Similarly, employers should avoid hiring based on body shape and appearance.
CIPD mentions that direct discrimination occurs when an individual is considered less favorable than others during the recruitment period due ones characteristic. Therefore according to Avado (2020), the claimant must be able to indicate that he or she was treated differently due to one of the characteristics in the equality act, 2010.
Indirect discrimination occurs when an employer of an organization puts specific people at a protected characteristics at a disadvantage position to prevent them achieve a targeted objective (Avado, 2020)
There are five stages in employment contract creation;
According to CIPD, a job offer is a binding contract in form of a formal letter that stipulates the main terms being offered by an employer to a new employee. It is legally binding once the new employee accepts the job offer.
It is when the employee accepts the job offer, thus making the offer official and legally binding.
It specifies that the contract is legally binding between the employer and the new employee
It specifies what both the employer and employee to offer one another in the contract.
It simply outlines the legal requirements of the offer subjected to acceptance. It is usually clear and precise.
Contracts legally bind agreements between employers and employees, thus cannot be changed without agreement of both parties included. Contracts made between the employers and employees mainly include agreements of working hours or salary payment range.
Process followed when varying a contract of employment
Redundancy occurs when an organization is on liquidation. This happens when the organization is close to bankruptcy thus it opts to sell its assets to reduce costs.
According to the employment rights act 1996, it considers reasons for redundancy in section 139 as; the employer intending to cease operations of the organization in which employees were employed.
Redundancy affects the morale, motivation and productivity of the employees in an organization. Employers should thus consider the following steps in reducing redundancies.
Protection of Employment Regulations 2006, as amended by “Collective Redundancies and TUFE Amendment Regulations 2014” (ACAS, 2020) specifies two scenarios of transfer undertaking as per CIPD guide;
Transfer Undertaking Process
TUPE varies depending on the form of transfer, either if it is a business transfer or a service provisional change. CIPD stipulates the following main factors to be considered during a transfer undertaking process
(ACAS, 2020)
In the UK, any automatic unfair dismissal claim leads to either Basic and Compensatory award payment. Basic calculation award which is ordered by the Tribunal of up to 16,140 pounds. Compensatory award presently the statutory cap of 88,519 pounds, or a 52 weeks gross salary as the lowest. (landaulaw.co.uk, 2020)
Under the UK laws, there are a variety of stipulated laws and regulations that define employee’s rights and entitlements;
In UK, the working Time Regulations Act, 1998 stipulates that the allowed working hours for employees is approximately 48 hours in a week. Exception is only considered for employees in the army and the National police. (Gov.uk, 2020)
For instance, in a case between Hughes vs. Corps of Commissionaires Management (No2)(2011), The court of appeal ruled out that a guard working a 12 hour shift could start a rest break if the client interrupted the guard’s rest break by a cellphone call from the client (employmentupdates.co.uk, 2011)
The UK government through the National Minimum Wage 1998 declared that the minimum wage rate per hour depends on the employee’s age. The rates are adjusted every April of the year. (Gov.uk, 2020)
(Gov.UK, 2020)
The Working Time Regulations 1998, specify that all employees are entitled to a minimum of not less than five weeks or approximately 28 days of paid annual leave per year (Gov.uk, 2020)
4.2 The major maternity, paternity and other family-friendly employment rights.
The following are legislations covering family-friendly rights
Every female employee is entitled to maternity leave of 52 weeks. Two weeks compulsory leave during birth of the child. The first 26 weeks of ordinary maternity leave (OML) and an addition 26 weeks of additional maternity leave (AML).
Gets 50 weeks leave and 37 weeks of pay (CIPD, 2020). Can be available for work after handing notice to finish her maternity leave early
An employee is entitled to get a statutory maternity leave and must give the employer the correct notice (Gov.uk, 2020). It is payable for 39weeks. 90% of the salary is paid for the first 6 weeks and the rest 145.14 pounds paid for the following 33weeks (CIPD, 2020).
To qualify for SMP, one must be an employee not a worker ,earn an average of at least 118 pounds per week, provide proof of pregnancy ,give the notice period and have worked for a period of at least 26weeks (Gov.uk, 2020).
Employees on maternity leave are allowed to work for 10 days without losing maternity pay.
Under this act employees can get 52 weeks of Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP) of which 39 weeks are payable.
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 1974, and Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employees are required by law to ensure health, safety and welfare at work.
Both employees and employers have the responsibilities to ensure they operate on a healthy and safe work environment as set by the HSWA.
Duties of the employers:
Duties of the employees are:
In accordance to CIPD, employers have a duty to provide a safe work environment to employees by:
Employers should communicate the above clearly to the employees and make the information easily accessible. Risk assessments that identify potential hazard should be under taken regularly. Moreover employers are required to keep record of their risk assessments and set up emergency procedure (CIPD, 2020). Furthermore, employees are protected under the Equality Act 2010 from victimization, harassment and bullying related to a protected characteristic.
Under the Health and Safety regulations, all employers have responsibilities to ensure their employees operate in a safe conducive environment; failure to this it will be within the employee’s right to claim constructive dismissal.
The employer may terminate the employee’s contract when the employee breaches the duty of implied trust and confidence.
The employee must communicate effectively and clearly with the employees, update the policy and procedures, involve employees with work environment surveys and undertake risk assessments on regular basis to void a breach in trust and confidence.
In accordance to article 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998, states that, freedom of association entitles people the right to form societies, clubs, and associate with people individually, but without interfering with the government as part of the trade union or protest to protect their interests (Equalityhumanrights.com, 2020).
However for this to happen, conditions should be in accordance with the following Employment Law;
Dismissal occurs when an employee’s contract is terminated abruptly with or without notice due to valid reasons such as misconducts, incompetence or redundancy. For the dismissal to be legal the employer follows the fair dismissal processes specified by the Employed Right Acts and ACAS. They are:
The employee can be accompanied by a trade union representative or a colleague during this grievance meeting. He can also appeal against a decision which is heard by a superior manager (Avado, 2020)
According to the UK Employment Act 1996 and ACAS, there are five fair reasons employers can use to dismiss employees.
All employees of an organization have the right to be accompanied by either a trade union representative or a work colleague during a disciplinary meeting as stipulated in section 1999. The duty that this trade union representative or colleague is to address the meeting when needed to, summarize key points but not to speak on behalf of the employee (Legislation.gov.uk, 2019).
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