For those that don’t know, before employing a person you must check that they have the legal right to work in the UK. You do this by checking original copies of appropriate documents, taking copies of those documents and recording the date of the check. If the individual has a...

A case from the European Court has examined whether stand by time is working time. Stand by time in this context was where the employee could be at home, as long as he was within a distance that allowed him to respond at work within a set time. The actual...

The Appeal Tribunal has issued a ruling which looks the extent to which a dismissal for redundancy will be unfair where the employer fails to consider “Bumping”. Bumping in a redundancy situation is the practice of redeploying a redundant employee to a role occupied by a second person, and making...

A problematic judgment last month from the Appeal Tribunal has been published concerning when a pre-cancerous growth should be treated as a disability. Many conditions have to be assessed in terms of their impact upon an employee before an employer can truly know whether the employee has a disability. Many...

The Appeal Tribunal has handed down a judgement in a case where the employer dismissed a probationary employee only to discover afterwards she was pregnant. The employee sued for discrimination and claimed that because the dismissal was due to her absence, and highly emotional state, it “must have been obvious”...

In anticipation of the minor snow fall we are expecting, and in response to several queries already, we anticipate that some employers are wondering whether they have to pay an employee who does not make it to work due to snow fall. Generally, and in most circumstances, the answer is...

In this case, an employer dismissed an employee who had been absent for 128 days.  The reasons for the absence were given as various, but included Work Related Stress and blood pressure. The employee brought claims, relying on being disabled and included a claim for failure to make reasonable adjustments....

The European Court of Justice handed down a judgment on 30th November that might have wide ranging implications for employers and must be understood, if only to assess the risk posed to any business. The case is called King v Sash Windows (2017) and the full judgment can be read here....

When the self-employed are found to be workers And so are entitled to holiday pay An employer whose business model uses “gig staff” (presumed to be self-employed often) has told a committee of MP’s that if a worker takes them to Tribunal and wins, gaining rights to paid holiday and...

It has long been a stock question from clients as to whether they can monitor employees’ emails. In fact, the actual question from clients often comes too late, in that they ask if they can sack an employee for the contents of an email and, we have to say that...