HR Articles

This article starts with a confession! It is not actually about love. That was merely a hook to grab your attention. Hopefully you are not too disappointed, but this is an Employment Relations article after all. The article is very much about first sight and first impressions though.

There have been many factors at play which have shaped this year’s developments in data protection, in particular stemming from Brexit, Covid-19 pandemic, inflation and the war in Ukraine. We review the key developments of 2022 and what you should look out for in the New Year.

The Government has announced that employees will receive a day one right to request flexible working as part of plans to make flexible working the default position.

The UK immigration system has incurred major changes this year. These changes aim to transform and simplify the immigration rules, system and policies.

We recently acted for the UK arm of a multi-national company in connection with the transfer of personal data to an HR services-provider based in the United States.

It’s less than four weeks until Christmas and the Christmas party season is about to begin.  The office party is often a mixed blessing – an opportunity to boost morale and perhaps celebrate a successful year yet also a melting pot of workers letting their hair down, with potential for accidents, injuries, threats and claims.

Twitter has made headlines yet again after its new owner, Elon Musk, has given employees an ultimatum: work long hours at high intensity, or quit and receive 3 months’ severance pay. Employees were given until Thursday 17 November 2022 to make a decision, which was around 24 hours after the ultimatum was given.

At PMQs in the House of Commons last week Sir Kier Starmer likened PM Rishi Sunak to “a weak boss so worried the bullies would turn on him, he hid behind them”.

This week the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) handed Interserve a £4.4 million fine for failing to put appropriate measures in place to prevent unauthorised access of private data.

Earlier this month, Twitter decided to dismiss around half of its employees (around 3,700 people) due to cost-saving reasons. Staff received a memo from the company stating that there would be mass layoffs, and then an hour later, employees were denied access to their work systems. This happened around 3am UK time, so most of Twitter’s UK employees were asleep.