Month: May 2019

 

Join us for an informative, interactive workshop aimed at providing managers with ‘hands on’ tips and advice to help them get to grips with their obligations under employment law relating to disability discrimination.

The workshop will provide case studies of actual situations, supported by expert practical advice to give a better insight and understanding of how disability discrimination can affect businesses and how easy it can be for those businesses to become liable, for the conduct of their workforce.

We aim to help and support those responsible for employees in understanding their obligations to minimise this risk and provide useful material to improve the functionality of the businesses.

8:30am to 10:30am
Friday 14 June 2019
Market Harborough Innovation Centre
Airfield Business Park, Leicester Road,
Market Harborough   LE16 7WB

Lawson West’s Employment Lawyer and event speaker Carrie-Ann Randall says of the workshop:

“I am thrilled to be working with The Ink Group on such an important topic. The workshop is one of a series of events this year, which aims to help and guide businesses in the basics of employment law and HR best practice for their company. It gives line managers the opportunity to learn about up-to-date employment practices, plus the chance to meet like-minded business individuals. We welcome guests to join us with what we hope to be an excellent workshop.”

To book places online, visit https://lw-inkworkshops.eventbrite.co.uk 

Attendance is free of charge and includes a light buffet breakfast and handout pack.

 

 

In a landmark leap forward in equal rights, Swedish car manufacturer, Volvo, has launched a pilot gender-neutral parental leave policy for the entire European, Middle East and Africa sales teams.

The momentous parental contract will offer both male and female sales team members who are employees of Volvo across the 3 continents six months leave at 80 percent pay.

The car manufacturer has stated that they have been inspired by the national parental leave legislation from Sweden and hopes that the pilot will be a success and will lead to a global roll-out to all Volvo employees.

The parental leave policy, in its pilot state, will be open to all parents in all relationships including same-sex and to the parents of adopted children.

Hanna Fager, Head of People Experience at Volvo has said: ‘We need to be a truly attractive employer to be able to deliver on our ambitious growth plans. Attracting and retaining the best people is crucial and we know that skilled talents will be more selective in their choice of employer. The winners in this battle for talent will be companies that value diversity, modern and flexible working practices, and employee well-being.’

Volvo is the latest in a short list of employers who are offering gender neutral parental leave policies. Companies who have already made the move to the more inclusive parental leave options include Diagio and Aviva.

Diagio, global leader in beverage alcohol sales with a large selection of brands across the spirit and beer categories announced on the 3^rdApril 2019 that all parents employed by the drinks giant, in the UK, will be eligible for the same fully-paid 26 week parental leave, retaining benefits and bonuses, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or whether they have become parents biologically, via a surrogate or through an adoption process. Diagio were motivated to change their leave policy to support their ambitious gender equality plans and to create a fully inclusive and diverse workforce, where barriers to career progression are removed, thus enabling their people to be retained and nurtured.

The rollout of Diagio’s policy covers all 4,500 UK based employees including approximately 3,100 team members in Scotland who, primarily, work in manufacturing roles.

Mairéad Nayager, Chief HR Officer says: ‘True gender equality in the working world requires fundamental changes to a broad range of working practices, including a shake-up of the policies and cultural norms around parental leave. Diagio’s announcement is about matching ambition with action and supporting all of our colleagues- regardless of gender- to experience the joy of raising a young family, while continuing to thrive at work.’

Businesses stepping into the new era of gender neutrality not only make their businesses attractive to the very best talent, in a world ever-changing where job-for-life mentalities of yesteryear are long since forgotten, hope to increase retention and decrease employee turnover. An overall saving, potentially, to businesses who invest in their new parents, who will then stay loyal to their employer after their, well-supported, return to work over the cost or recruiting and training new team members.  

It is hoped that many other employers will follow the lead of these HR-leaders in the coming months and years.

 

If you are considering a change to your business’ paternity leave policies, please contact Vaishali Thakerar at your earliest convenience, on 0116 212 1000 or via email on vthakerar@lawson-west.co.uk

 

This document is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is recommended that specific professional advice is sought before acting on any of the information given.

An employment tribunal between the live-in warden & receptionist husband and wife team and their former employer was heard in Manchester Court on the 17th October 2018.

The claimants, Mrs Janet Frudd & Mr Ian Frudd, brought forward a claim against the Partington Group Ltd, owners of the caravan site, Broadwater Park, near Fleetwood, a coastal town in Lancashire. Their claim alleged that they had not been paid the national minimum wage for their working hours at the caravan park due to the number of extra hours that were expected of them outside of their day-shift time.

The husband and wife team worked at the caravan park from 2008 to 2015 as one of three live-in warden/ receptionist teams working on shift to manage the administrative duties of the reception desk of the caravan park and to conduct evening security checks during the closed season.

The Judge of the case, Employment Judge Horne, sitting in the Manchester Employment Tribunal, heard that on either two or three days of the week, the Claimants were expected to be on call after their day-time shift ended. The site had an open season running from March to November and a closed season from December to February. During the open season, the Claimants’ day shift finished at 5 pm and during the open season at 8 pm. During the closed season, the gates to the park are locked at 4.30pm, and the Claimants’ normal working hours ran from 8 am to 4.30pm. However, Mr Frudd was expected and required to undertake a security check of the park in the evening during the closed season. There was no specific payment for this activity.

During the open season, the caravan park was open 24-hours a day. Their day-shifts ran from 8 am to 8 pm during this time. From 10 pm to 7 am, the Claimants were expected to be on call for emergency call-outs, during which time, they were entitled to payment for call-outs at a payment of £7.50 per person per call-out.

The Employment Judge set the period of on-call between shifts into three sections. The first section ran from the end of the claimants’ shift to 10 pm, where the Claimants were required to carry out a number of tasks such as; showing around prospective customers; welcoming late arriving guests; giving keys to visitors who were subletting owned caravans; conducting an evening check if security guards were not present; dealing with incidents, unruly behaviour etc; responding to alarm calls and on one occasion, parking a tractor across the main site guests until potential trespassers had moved on. The second block of time ran from 10 pm to 7 am when very few call-outs were necessary, but an expectation was contracted that if a call-out was made when the Claimants were taking their rotation on call, they would respond- and would be paid per call out. The third block of time referred to the 7 am to 8 am block, when the on-call provision had ended but the day-shift had not yet begun.

The employment tribunal Employment Judge found that the period after 10 pm was justified as ‘stand by’ to work and that the expectation did not negatively affect the Claimants’ leisure time and that the Respondent was justified to pay a call out charge as was contracted.

The Employment Tribunal heard a claim by Mrs & Mr Frudd for the whole period from the end of the day shift until 8 am the following morning. Therefore, although the time between 7 am and 8 am were not expressly mentioned by the Claimants in their application to the Employment Tribunal, they could not have expressly mentioned this time as in the initial application, the time frame was viewed as a whole, not as three parts as it was when examined by the Employment Judge.

The Employment Judge found that for the time that the Claimants were carrying out their duties between the end of their day shift and 10 pm, their activities should have been considered as working on time work for the purposes of National Minimum Wage.

Mrs & Mr Frudd appealed the decision brought by the Employment Tribunal Judge.

At the Appeal hearing, on the 11th February 2019, His Honour David Richardson, was able only to comment on the case as an appeal to the question of law- not to comment upon if the outcome of the ET was correct, but whether there was evidence that the law had not been upheld.

The Appeal concluded that the Employment Judge was acting appropriately when he split the time frame into 3 sections. He agreed with the handling of both the ‘evening’ time- after the day shift and pre-10pm where the ET found the Claimants should have been paid the National Minimum Wage and that the ‘night-time’ between 10 pm and 7 am was appropriately justified by the Respondent. What was missing, was any reference to the time frame from 7 am to 8 am. As such, the case has been referred back to the Employment Tribunal to be resubmitted and that the Employment Judge must reconsider the early morning time frame.

 

If you are considering an issue with an employer or a previous employer and require the support of our employment team, in the first instance, please contact Vaishali Thakerar by calling 0116 212 1000 or via email: vthakerar@lawson-west.co.uk

This document is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is recommended that specific professional advice is sought before acting on any of the information given.

According to Ministry of Justice Figures, there were 6,550 disability discrimination claims at employment tribunals last year. This is a 37% increase on the year before, and represents a growth rate which is eight times faster than the increase in total claims over the same period.

These figures accord with the experience of the employment team at Lawson West. We have in recent months found ourselves spending an ever-increasing amount of time on helping our clients bring disability discrimination claims.

Are people discriminating more?

This is a tricky question to answer definitively based either on the figures or our own experience. It certainly might seem that way, however there may be more to the increase in claims than it first seems.

Firstly, tribunal fees were abolished in 2017, which has caused an increase in employment-related claims across the board. However, this does not itself explain why disability discrimination claims have increased so dramatically. Disability discrimination claims aren’t necessarily more expensive than any other, so what else might be going on?

In our experience, a great deal of disability discrimination claims are beginning to centre around conditions that used to, and unfortunately to a lesser extent still do, carry a stigma. In the past few years, charities such as Mind have been shining a light on mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, with which people have been suffering silently because they felt ashamed or embarrassed to bring them up. Thanks to this increased awareness, a lot of people have sought help and assistance from GPs and other medical professionals to be diagnosed and treated.

Now, whereas previously people might not even have been aware that they had a medical condition, they are more willing to assert their right not to be disadvantaged because of their medical condition.

Is the increase in Disability Discrimination claims due to greater awareness?

Not quite. As businesses are facing down the pressures of Brexit, increased regulatory oversight, and turbulent economic conditions, much of the pressures are passed down to its workers. As work-related stress increases, so do absences. As absences become more frequent, employers might find themselves entitled to implement disciplinary procedures. If the employee’s absence is caused by a condition that could qualify as a disability under the Equality Act 2010, disciplinary action based on the absences could be an act of discrimination.

Indeed, according to Health and Safety Executive figures, there were 26.8 million days lost through work-related ill health in 2017-18. Among those who took days off, the longest absences were of those suffering stress, depression and anxiety (26 days).

As to what has caused the increased the sharp rise in disability discrimination claims, as with most situations where you have to choose between one cause or another, it is most likely a combination of both greater awareness and increased pressures placed on workers which exacerbate their underlying conditions.

How do I know if I have a disability?

It is not often obvious that somebody has a disability, and many people might have one and not even know themselves.

According to the Equality Act 2010, a person will have a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment which substantially adversely affects their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. These can range from getting dressed in the morning to socialising with friends. The impairment also needs to have lasted for longer than 12 months or, if not, be likely to last longer than 12 months.

If you believe you have a disability and are being discriminated against, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Lawson West’s employment team, who will be happy to help you find a resolution that suits you.

Legal support from Lawson West Solicitors 

If you require any advice or support in relation to any of the issues covered in this article, contact us.

In addition to No Win No Fee, Lawson West solicitors act for our clients on a variety of other funding arrangements including Legal Expenses insurance funding. We can assess your case to decide which is the best funding option for you.

With offices in Leicester, Wigston and Market Harborough our employment solicitors and lawyers can discuss your employment law claim at any of our branches. In addition, we are a national provider of expert employment law advice and welcome a free discussion with you regarding your circumstances and potential claim.

If you believe you have a situation where you require free legal advice, please contact us on telephone 0116 212 1000 or 01858 445 480, alternatively fill in our contact us form and we will get in touch as soon as possible.

 

This document is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is recommended that specific professional advice is sought before acting on any of the information given.