HR Articles

Over the last two years, there has been a steady stream of high-profile employment rights claims by individuals working in the gig economy (for Uber, Citysprint, Deliveroo, Hermes and many others).

An employer does not have to take every possible step possible to establish whether an employee is disabled. The test is what an employer could reasonably be expected to know.

Last month, we posted an article on the role of the Authorising Officer and explained that this person does not have access to the Sponsorship Management System (SMS) unless he/she is a Level 1 or 2 user. Since then we’ve received enquiries from HR staff wanting to know more about the SMS, who has access to it and the differences between a Level 1 and 2 user.

The Claimant in the case of Wilson Solicitors LLP and others v Roberts was a solicitor and member of the LLP. He was also Managing Partner and held several compliance roles. A complaint of bullying was made against one of the Senior Partners and the Claimant was appointed to investigate it.

We reported on Matthew Taylor’s review of modern working practices last year. The Government has now published its full response to that report and has launched four consultations into the following areas:

Tier 2 sponsors should have by now received an email from UK Visas & Immigration reminding them that the CoS annual allocation process will soon begin and any unused unrestricted CoS in the SMS will expire on 5 April 2018. Sponsors should start thinking about how many unrestricted CoS they’ll need from 6 April 2018 to 5 April 2019.

The Fawcett Society recently published its analysis of the efficacy of sex discrimination law in the UK (“the Report”). Whilst acknowledging the efforts made in this area to date, the Report goes on to identify a number of areas in which significant reform is still required. We identify the points likely to be of most interest to employers below.

A worker has the right not to be subjected to a detriment for refusing to comply with a requirement that breaches the Working Time Regulations 1998.

Tier 2 sponsors will be pleased to hear that rules which came into effect from 11 January 2018 now allow Tier 4 Students on non-PhD courses to switch to a Tier 2 General visa when they have completed their course.

A recently reported survey carried out by data cleansing specialist, W8 Data, has found that the UK is significantly more confident than other EU countries that it can comply with the GDPR when it comes into force in May this year.