The Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled on the 25th June on a case where a dismissal occurred, with “serious procedural deficiencies” and found that in spite of the deficiencies in process, the dismissal was fair. The employer failed to follow the ACAS code and dismissed for reasons that were not part...

ACAS have been busy preparing new guides for employers, although basic in nature, they are well written and cover what you need to know. The two guides are at the following links: Guidance for dealing with ante-natal appointments: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5343 Guidance for small employers on dealing with pay and wages: http://www.acas.org.uk/payguide...

Following developments earlier this year that mean employers must take into account compulsory overtime when calculating holiday pay, the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland has extended this principle to voluntary overtime. The Court did not see fit to shed any light on how this should be calculated, or indeed...

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. The Advocate General has published his opinion on whether time spent travelling to the first assignment or job of the day by workers who do not have a fixed static place of work, is working time for the purposes of calculating working time limits, and by extension,...

As of today, the 26th May 2015, exclusivity clauses in zero hours contracts have been banned.  This means that if you give people such contracts, you cannot stop them working elsewhere. The eagle eyed among you may feel that this is old news, as certain politicians had said it was...

While this case concerned the provision of goods and services, it is directly relevant to employment and employers should take note. We hope that none of our readers will be faced with a dilemma of this type, but the issue is fairly important for all of us as a society...

The Appeal Tribunal this week found a dismissal to be fair where the employer told an employee NOT to report an alleged breach of the Data Protection Act to the Information Commissioners office (ICO) but the employee reported the employer anyway. This is a case that would have many lawyers...

The Appeal Tribunal has held that where an employee raises a grievance during a disciplinary and the employer dismisses the employee before investigating the grievance, it does NOT automatically mean the dismissal is unfair. Employers should be cautious about this, as it will always depend upon the substance of the...

The Appeal Tribunal ruled last week on the question of dismissals for Some Other Substantial Reason (SOSR). SOSR is a category of justifiable dismissal just like misconduct or poor performance. However, it is a catch all category for dismissals that do not fall into the other main categories. For this...

A quick reminder that with the introduction of the Shared Parental Leave rules, it is vital that employers have an up to date policy dealing with the rights. The reason this is so important is that there are very strict criteria that must be met if an employee’s request is...