Home Budget 2007 Company Profile Services Accountancy Zone Business Zone Tax Zone IR35 Update News Articles Feedback Search Legal Notice How To Find Us Staying within the law More and more, employers must have a keen grasp of the latest legislation if they are to grow their business successfully whilst still staying the right side of the law. Parental Leave Yes, more time off. This was implemented late last year. The rights granted by it are in addition to existing rights. The main points are: Its purpose is "to facilitate the reconciliation of parental and professional responsibilities for working parents." It relates to employees - not workers. It applies to both sexes - "men should be encourage to assume an equal share of family responsibilities". The two basic rights are to have three months parental leave, and to have time off for urgent family reasons except "'where the immediate presence of the worker [is] indispensable". Parental leave applies to both the birth and adoption of a child. At the end of the leave, the employee shall have the right to return to the same job or "an equivalent or similar job". It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for taking parental leave. Further rules applicable to this country are as follows: The leave may be taken up to the child becoming a certain age, which is to be determined by the UK - the maximum age is 8. Leave may be on a full-time or part-time basis, or by a time credit system. There is no requirement that the leave has to be paid leave. There may be an initial qualifying period of up to one year. Notice procedures may be adopted. Circumstances may be defined where the employer "is allowed to postpone the granting of parental leave for justifiable reasons related to the operation of the undertaking". The UK "may specify the conditions for access and modalities of application" of the urgent family reason leave and "limit this entitlement to a certain amount of time per year and/or per case". The UK must define the status of the employment contract during the leave (this is one of the current problems with maternity leave). There are no provisions for the exemption of small employers. (Although the Directive does provide for there to be "special arrangements to meet the operational and organisational requirements of small undertakings.") It is not certain what practical effect there will be on employers, but it may not be as severe as feared. At present, all maternity leave has to be taken by the mother. No doubt in many cases, the mother will still take all the leave to which she is entitled (whether the short or long leave) and the father will exercise his right to take the new parental leave. There will therefore be extra disruption caused. However, it is possible that the effect in some cases may be that there will effectively be a sharing of leave, although under the Directive the parental leave is not transferable from one parent to another. Part-Timers There are more than 14 million part time workers in the EU, and around 10 million temporary workers. More women than men work part-time or in temporary jobs, and that they may be discriminated against if their rights are consequently less. Hence, legislation has been proposed. The EU Directive aims to prevent part-time workers being treated less favourably than full-time workers. The main points are as follows: Part-time workers shall not be treated in a less favourable manner than comparable full-time workers solely because they work part-time unless different treatment is justified on objective grounds. Only employees are covered, and casual employees may be excluded by Member States when enacting domestic legislation. The principle of pro rata pay should apply wherever possible i.e. the same pro rata rate should be paid for part time work as is paid for full time wherever possible. Employers should give consideration to a request by a worker to change from full-time to part-time or vice versa. Employers should check the terms on which part-time workers are employed and ensure that they are not employed on any terms which are less favourable than full time employees. Any new part-time employees should be issued with contracts which will comply with the terms of the Directive. By natural wastage, this step should minimise any adverse impact. Absenteeism It is vital to the health and success of your business that any staffing problems are resolved with the minimum of fuss and without the employee resorting to an Employment Tribunal. This can be particularly difficult when dealing with problems of absenteeism. First to get right is the contract itself. It is important that in an individual's contract of employment reference is made to time off caused by illness. An employee should be under an obligation to tell you they will be absent. You should request a doctor's certificate on a regular basis if the absence is expected to last for longer than a week. The contract should provide for an employee to disclose medical records and attend a medical examination at your request. This should be enforced if there appears to be no obvious medical reason for the absenteeism. If the investigation shows this to be the case, you should deal with the matter under the disciplinary procedure. As part of that procedure, you should clearly tell your employee what improvement is expected in their attendance and the consequences of any failure to put things right. You could do this with an oral or written warning depending on the individual disciplinary procedure and also the frequency of the absences. Any oral warning should also be recorded in writing and placed on the employee's personnel file. Long-term absence due to serious illness is often a sensitive issue for an employer. You may not want to dismiss an unwell employee but you could find it difficult to cope on a daily basis and plan for the future of the business. So it is important to maintain regular contact with your employee. That way you can be kept informed of any progress. It may be appropriate to ask to see their medical records and to have them medically examined. However, if there is no clause in the employment contract to allow this, you'll need to get their consent first. Once you know the medical position you can plan for temporary staff and consider any potential alternative employment for the employee. You may even decide it is no longer viable to employ that worker. Although incapacity is a fair reason to dismiss, it is important that a decision is made only after full investigation and consultation. An employee who is dismissed must be afforded at least their contractual entitlements, for example pay in lieu of notice. If applicable, they should also be advised of their right to appeal under a grievance procedure. Working Time Regulations See our article on this subject for more details. Health and Safety The laws relating to health and safety in the work place are growing ever more stringent and the penalties for failing to observe those laws are becoming more onerous too. Any business which does not take seriously the ever increasing body of legislation is going to find that they run the risk of falling foul of the rules. Much of the law which a business needs to know can be found in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, although many of its provisions are being overtaken by new rules introduced with the aim of harmonising rules in the UK with those in the rest of Europe. Employers must generally ensure that, so far as is practicable, their employees, tenants, visitors to their premises, persons using their equipment or anyone using their products or services are not exposed to health and safety risks, and all must display an official Health and Safety Law poster in a prominent place advising employees and visitors. Employers must also provide an appropriate First Aid Kit and must keep records of accidents and dangerous occurrences which happen. Serious accidents must be reported to the Health and Safety Executive or to the Local Authority. If you are in any doubt as to whether your organisation is affected by these regulations either consult your local office of the Health and Safety Executive or contact your local solicitor who, even if he cannot help you directly, will be able to put you in touch with the appropriate body that can. [ Business Zone Home · Previous - Exporting · Next - Supercharge Your Sales And Marketing Operation ]