HR Articles

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is #ChoosetoChallenge. This  is a call not just to women, but to people of any gender to challenge the barriers to gender equality in society, wherever they exist, and to use any privilege or influence they may have to further the cause of gender equality.  

The employment tribunal in Kubilius v Kent Food Ltd ET 3201960/2020 has given judgment on whether dismissing an employee on the grounds of gross misconduct, for not wearing a face mask, was fair. 

With the understandable focus on measures to ease lockdown, keeping up with data protection announcements is unlikely to be at the forefront of everyone’s minds. 

The Government has confirmed that the furlough scheme will be extended for a further 5 months and will now end on 30 September 2021.

HMRC have lost their appeal against a ruling which found that the journalist and broadcaster, Kay Adams, was not in a ‘disguised’ employment relationship with the BBC when she was providing her services via her personal service company.   

On 6 April 2020, the law relating to employment contracts changed. It now requires further information to be included in contracts and for this to be given to all employees AND workers no later than day one of work.

You may have seen our previous blog on rolling out vaccination programmes for employees. The debate on whether the workforce should be vaccinated continues at a pace in the press, where we have seen Barchester Healthcare join Pimlico Plumbers in considering all new recruits having to be vaccinated as a requirement of the role.

The UK Home Office has granted more than 2,000 sponsor licences to eligible organisations since July 2020. The total number of licenced sponsors has now increased to 33,000, which allows them to sponsor a worker under either the Skilled Worker or the Intra Company Transfer visa. 

As expected, the Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the decisions of the Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal  and  Court of Appeal that the Uber drivers in this case were workers and not self-employed contractors.  

Mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting could become the norm, as calls for its introduction intensify.