Employment contracts are the building blocks of the employment relationship. However, they are often not given the care or attention they deserve; have you given your contracts a health check recently? Here are our tips for some key areas to focus on:
If you would like Roots HR to undertake a review of your employment contract templates, please contact us.
According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, younger employees are being influenced by workplace trends popularised on the social media platform, TikTok.
These include ideas like ‘quiet quitting’ (doing only as much as is required to avoid performance management or dismissal); ‘bare minimum Monday’ (easing into the week by ‘going slow’ on a Monday) and ‘ghosting’ (where, much like with internet dating, employees frequently leave a job if a better offer is made elsewhere – with no consideration of loyalty).
If these trends tell us anything it is that the traditional model of employees being grateful to have a job and embracing the 9 to 5 grind has been replaced by a host of different ideas about what it means to go to work. Recognising that the emerging workforce and leaders of the future place high value on work-life balance and wellbeing allows businesses to focus training and development in these areas. Employees will feel heard, helping to retain talent.
Reflections on the 4-day working week trial
Data from the UK’s large-scale 4 day working week trial was published in February 2023. The data emerged from a 6-month trial involving over 60 businesses of varying sizes across a wide range of industries. Each business involved moved its employees to a 4-day working week whilst maintaining salaries at a 5-day level.
The headline results showed that 30% of the businesses who completed the trial intended to keep the arrangement permanently. There was some evidence that productivity and output increased. The trial had a positive impact on employee engagement. However, its impact varied widely from business to business. Participants in warehousing and manufacturing businesses struggled to keep up with demand. Customer-facing businesses (like call centres) also encountered issues with service levels with some needing to recruit additional headcount (at additional cost) to make sure that service levels did not drop.
The outcome of this trial indicates that, much like the shift to homeworking caused by the pandemic, a reduced working week is easier for some types of business to accommodate than others.
Employees have a right not to be treated unfavourably by their employer because of something arising from a disability (unless the treatment can be justified). It is often the knock-on effect of a person’s disability which leads to problems in employment rather than the disability itself.
Where an employee has a mental impairment, it is not always easy for an employer to know what behaviour ‘arises from’ a disability and what behaviour is just poor behaviour.
In McQueen v The General Optical Council, Mr. McQueen had various neurodiverse impairments. He was disciplined for a pattern of aggressive behaviour at work.
He brought a claim alleging that he had been treated unfavourably for this aggressive behaviour, which he claimed arose from his disabilities. The medical evidence stated that his disabilities meant that he was more likely to lose control when stressed. Despite this, the Employment Tribunal decided that the aggressive behaviour was not something which arose from his disabilities at all. The Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed that this assessment could stand.
They noted that the test of whether behaviour ‘arises from’ a disability is a wide one and does not require the disability to be the sole or main reason for the behaviour but found that there was no need for the ET to assess multiple factors contributing to the behaviour in this case as they had concluded that the disabilities had no impact on the behaviour – so did not ‘arise’ from them at all.
This case, as with all cases looking at discrimination arising from a disability, is fact specific but there are some useful points that employers can take away:
There was a definite theme running through the employment proposals announced in the Spring 2023 Budget: ‘get back to work’! This was approached from various angles but one of the key announcements was the proposed introduction of ‘returnerships’ (later life accelerated apprenticeships) for those over 50 returning to the workplace following a break.
The impact of this on employers is largely indirect and hopefully positive. A larger prospective workforce means a larger and more diverse pool of potential candidates for roles. As a society we are living longer, and UK productivity relies on using talents of all ages and re-engaging and potentially re-training those who may have already had a ‘first career’. Personnel Today reports that the over 50s are the fastest growing demographic in the UK – numbering 27.9 million people by 2030.
There are factors that will need to be considered. For example, what rate of pay will those on ‘returnerships’ be entitled to? Will they be treated in the same way as other apprentices? Employers will also need to consider specific needs and priorities of those returning to work over the age of 50. They might favour flexible working or job-sharing so you may face an increase in flexible working applications. There could also be an increased need for occupational health support if those returning have age-related health issues. An employer’s obligation not to discriminate on grounds of age, sex or disability will apply in the context of returnerships just as it does to other areas of employment
