Coronavirus Working From Home Articles

It was ruled that an employee, who had been dismissed from his role for not attending work as a result of Covid-19 concerns, was not automatically unfairly dismissed. Satinder Kaur explains...

10-16 May is Mental Health Awareness Week. Mental Health Foundation raises awareness of the powerful tonic that nature can bring to a troubled mind...

Findings and Report on Coronavirus in the workplace, from the views and perspectives of employees. Not to be missed. See our full report and statistics.

New Public Health England "Covid - Self-Isolation" laws come into effect today.

How might social distancing affect my job if I still have to work?
It has been reported recently that an Air New Zealand flight attendant who had been dismissed has been forced to hand over her bank records and Facebook pages to bosses in a row over sick leave...
A recent survey by law firm Slater & Gordon has found that over a quarter of mothers in the UK feel discriminated against at work. Of 1,975 women surveyed...
An employment tribunal is considering the case of a female lawyer who was made redundant from her £100,000-a-year job when she asked to extend her six-month maternity leave due to suffering complications giving birth...
New research suggests that nearly two thirds of women have been the victim of inappropriate behaviour from a male work colleague, with 21% of those classing the behaviour as persistent...
A Pagan witch has won a religious discrimination case and has been awarded more than £15,000 in what is believed to be the first successful claim of its kind in Britain...
Following comments from Chancellor George Osborne that the country can ‘now afford’ to raise the National Minimum Wage, the government is cracking down on employers who break the law by failing to pay staff the legal minimum, currently £6.31 per hour for workers over 21...
Employees who are working illegally, e.g. without a necessary work permit or without paying tax, cannot bring unfair dismissal claims if their employment is terminated. However, a recent case shows that the position is different in relation to discrimination claims...
Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna has said that the next Labour Government will scrap the Government’s employment tribunal system and replace it with a fairer one that doesn’t deter employees who have been treated unfairly at work from making a claim...
An employment tribunal has ruled that a deputy head teacher who was sacked after giving former pupils a tour of her school building was unfairly dismissed...
Business Secretary Vince Cable has today announced plans to ban exclusivity clauses which prevent people on zero hours’ contracts from working for more than one employer...
A survey just published claims that a third of people struggle to cope at work because of depression, stress or burn out...
Trade unions and employment law experts together are calling for a review of tribunal fees as new figures show a 70% drop in the number of cases taken to employment tribunal since they were introduced last year...
A ruling at the Employment Appeal Tribunal yesterday means that some five million workers could get extra holiday pay in future...
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced that all Civil Service employees will be entitled to full parental pay from April 2015, when they choose to share parental leave. Currently, only mothers are entitled to full pay in this situation...
The European Court of Justice, the highest court of the EU, has ruled that obesity can constitute a disability – in some circumstances, where it could hinder ‘full and effective participation’ at work.
The trade union Unison has again been unsuccessful in its bid to overturn employment tribunal fees, but has been granted permission to appeal. The union’s first application to overturn employment tribunal fees was also rejected in February.
A report launched by the Confederation of British Industry at their recent conference has called on the government to improve living standards by increasing the national insurance threshold and also by extending free childcare to working parents of one and two year olds...
In a recent announcement, the Government is increasing the amount of compensation payable for employment law claims...
An employment tribunal has ruled that a heart specialist was unfairly dismissed after he raised concerns about a hospital’s failings which led to a patient’s death, including staffing shortages, workplace bullying and ‘appalling’ equipment...
A study by ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) has found that agency workers are unaware of their employment rights, or and afraid of asserting them...
A new campaign has been launched for women who have been discriminated against at work while pregnant or due to having had a baby...
Good legal advice is increasingly crucial if working mothers are to avoid discrimination as they return from maternity leave, claims a Leicestershire employment lawyer...
The Chancellor announced yesterday that shared parental leave and pay will be extended to working grandparents, in order to increase flexibility for working parents and help them with the costs of childcare during the first year after their baby is born...
Far from being confined to the playground, bullying is very much a feature of some people’s working lives as adults and can make the workplace a miserable and tense environment...
Dr Raj Mattu was employed as a cardiologist at the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry in 2001, when he made ‘protected disclosures’ about dangerous overcrowding in patient bays which could have led to avoidable deaths...
A study by business experts has found that women suffer a ‘motherhood penalty’ which leaves them with poorer pay and lesser job prospects for decades after taking maternity leave...
The European Court of Human Rights yesterday ruled that employers are allowed to read personal messages sent by staff during working hours over private messaging platforms...
Gender pay reporting is a regulatory framework announced by the Government, it means that businesses with over 250 employees will berequired to publish the mean and median gender pay gaps as well as the number of men and women in each quartile of their pay distribution...

Social media is massive and very difficult to escape – it’s everywhere. Businesses use it to promote their services and individuals use it to chat with friends or to mull over the events of that day...
In 2015, the average salary for men was £29,934 and £24,202 for women – a difference of £5,732 per year...
A recent case at the Employment Appeals Tribunal found that it does not count as discrimination if an employer discontinues an employee’s childcare vouchers during their maternity leave...
The Ministry of Justice has published figures to show that since the introduction of fees payable for employment tribunals the success rate has fallen. Based on 21,500 cases in the third quarter of 2015/16 the figures show that 6% of cases were successful and 6% were not, whereas in 2012/13, 11% of claims were successful and 7% were unsuccessful...

As we have previously reported, the national living wage is going up from April 2016. Currently the rate is £6.70 per hour which will increase to £7.20 per hour next month for workers over the age of 25...

Jonas Gutierrez was playing for Newcastle United football club when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2013. When he was well enough to return to the club after treatment he was loaned out to Norwich City for the remainder of that season...

Philip Rostant, who is a leading judge that specialises in employment law, has said that the only way to deal with discrimination of overweight people in the workplace is to introduce legislation so that they are able to sue their colleagues if they are rude or abusive about their weight...

Whistleblowing is one of the most complex and riveting areas of Employment Law. It’s an area that gains a lot of press coverage because of the often high profile nature of issues involved. Edward Snowden, the CIA whistle-blower..
Research has shown that bosses and line managers who encourage their staff to continually go above and beyond their contractual duties at work could actually be having a detrimental effect on their health.

Recently there has been a story in the news about a 27 year old woman who began a temping job at a prestigious London firm. The lady arrived on her first day wearing flat shoes as she knew that part of her job would require her to be on her feet for most of the day...
The Citizens Advice Bureau have recently reported a 25% increase of queries from women who are experiencing discrimination in the work place because they are pregnant or since they have returned to work after their maternity leave...

A Yorkshire based nurse took her local ambulance service, who are part of the NHS Trust, to an Employment Tribunal after she received a conditional offer of employment which was withdrawn once they received her reference and an Occupational Therapy report.

This year sees the start of Ramadan’s religious observance on for 30 days from 6th June. Ramadan it is a dedicated time in the Muslim calendar to focus on spirituality during which they cannot consume food between the sun rising and falling each day...

A Leicester based company have sacked a member of their staff who was a whistle-blower. He wanted to expose their ill treatment of staff and the tactics they had developed to avoid paying the national living wage...

Retail giant Sport Direct has been accused by MP’s of treating their staff like “commodities rather than human beings” further to a report carried out by the Business, Innovation and Skills committee...