Notice is normally needed in order to lawfully end an employment contract. A failure to give notice – by either party – will usually be a breach of contract. Many employers include PILON – payment in lieu of notice – clauses in employment contracts to enable them to end employment early provided they pay the correct notice pay. If an employee resigns, there will be no dismissal. However, s95 Employment Rights Act 1996 says that an employee is dismissed if the employment contract is terminated by the employer, with or without notice. The EAT has looked at a case where the employee resigned but the employer ended the contract before the notice period had ended by making a payment in lieu of notice. The employee said he had been dismissed and was therefore entitled to bring an unfair dismissal claim.
The government has confirmed that it has accepted the views of the Low Pay Commission and apply the following increases in the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage from 01 April 2022:
Even for seasoned employment law practitioners, the decision of P&O to sack its entire workforce with no notice and by pre-recorded video came as a shock. No warnings, no consultation, no in-person discussions. Such was the shock and speed of the dismissals that some employees were unable to gather all their belongings in time. P&O’s plan is to reduce costs by replacing the entire 800-strong workforce with much cheaper agency workers to whom they believe the UK’s national minimum wage rules will not apply.
As the World starts to open up again, we look at what you need to consider if your business has employees in other countries who are visiting the UK to work.
Business travel across borders, and even within them, pretty much stopped in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid 19 pandemic. As travel restrictions are being lifted, businesses have the opportunity to allow employees to travel and international business travel is on the rise.
Employers need to take some time to refamiliarise themselves with the relevant rules around immigration and employment tax before they accept a visit from an overseas employee to ensure compliance.
Stockbrokers at London firm FinCapp have decided to give their employees unlimited holiday entitlement. After a bumper 6 months for workload and profit, the business has decided to introduce the policy to guard against staff burn out. The move will flip the standard holiday policy on its head – instead of a maximum limit, the company will instead introduce a minimum level of holiday for employees. Staff will be required to take a minimum of 4 weeks off per year and a few days per quarter to ensure they get regular breaks.
An employee has the right not be subjected to detriment by their employer on the ground that they made a protected disclosure. In deciding whether treatment is done ‘on the ground’ of making a protected disclosure, the tribunal must decide whether the protected disclosure was a material factor in the employer’s decision making but it does not have to be the sole cause. It is possible to distinguish between treatment which results from a protected disclosure and treatment which occurs because of something else instead – the manner in which a disclosure was made, or something that was done at the same time as the disclosure or even something which is a consequence of the disclosure rather than the disclosure itself. Sometimes it will be possible to separate the disclosure from these other things but the case of Fitzmaurice v Luton Irish Forum has shown just how much care an employment tribunal must take in applying the legal test to the facts of a case.
An employment tribunal has found that a fear of catching Covid-19 is not a protected belief under the Equality Act 2010 (EA). Section 10 of the EA says that a belief means any religious or philosophical belief. To be a philosophical belief, the case of Grainger v Nicholson said the belief must be genuinely held, be a belief rather than a viewpoint or opinion, concern a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour, attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance and must be worth of respect in a democratic society. In X v Y, an employment tribunal looked at how the law applies to a claimed belief involving a fear of Covid-19.
Section 15 of the Equality Act 2010 deals with discrimination arising from disability. This is where an employee is treated unfavourably because of something arising from their disability. An employer will have a defence if it can show that its actions were a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate business aim.
Employers must follow the Acas Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance procedures when dealing with employee grievances or dismissing for misconduct or poor performance. If an employer does not follow the Acas Code, an employment tribunal can increase compensation by up to 25 per cent if it is just and equitable to do so. In Slade v Biggs, the EAT dealt with an appeal by an employer against a 25 per cent uplift in a discrimination claim.
For a dismissal to be fair, the reason (or main reason) for the dismissal must be one of the potentially fair reasons under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. These are capability, conduct, redundancy, statutory illegality, or some other substantial reason (SOSR). The employer must also show that it acted reasonably in all the circumstances, bearing in mind its size and resources, including following a fair procedure. The employment tribunal will decide whether, on the particular facts of the case, the dismissal fell within the band of reasonable responses open to the employer in the circumstances.
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