HR Articles

The year 2020 will always be a stand-out year in our personal and professional lives. COVID-19 brought so much suffering to so many across the globe and created a level of uncertainty that we had never experienced before. Businesses were forced to adapt at breakneck speed.

The coronavirus pandemic resulted in the postponement of many employment law changes due to take place in 2020. This article investigates some of the key developments anticipated over the next 12 months.

A new mother who was not invited to her work Christmas party whilst on maternity leave has succeeded in her claim against her employer.

Again, employers and employees are facing the difficult balancing act of managing work and childcare through this third national lockdown. The three main options for employers to manage such leave are to place affected parents/guardians on furlough, have parents use their annual leave to take time off or take unpaid leave.

Now that the UK is past its first week of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, employers are starting to consider what 2021 will look like and whether there is hope of the workplace returning to some form of normality. The question on many employers’ minds is - can we require our staff to get vaccinated?

This month, the BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) opened their consultation on reforming employment contract non-compete clauses. Back in 2016, there was a close to universal consensus amongst employers that restrictive covenants are a valuable instrument for those seeking to protect their business interests. At the same time, their perceived impact on an ex-employee’s ability to find new work was deemed insignificant, or not unfair.

The Government’s CEST tool, designed to help determine whether a worker will be caught by the changes to the off payroll working rules (IR35) was unable to reach a conclusion in 19% of cases checked in the last year.

The Government has now published detailed guidance on applying for a Frontier Worker permit following the end of the Brexit transition period. The scheme is open to Frontier Workers who have worked in the UK prior to 31 December 2020.

The Employment Tribunal has issued a timely reminder to employers of the dangers of social media in the workplace, after finding in Abdi v Deltec International Courier Ltd that the employee had been harassed by her colleagues via WhatsApp.

The April 2021 statutory maternity, paternity and sick pay rates have been released by the Government. The increases are modest at less than £1 per week.