One of the most significant and early impacts to be made by the new Labour government will be in the area of employment laws. With numerous and extensive changes on the cards, the underlying trend of these changes is to drive enhanced employment protections for employees. New day one rights will come into force, along with changes around redundancy consultation and increased protections for workers within the gig economy, such as the combined categorisations of employee vs worker in order to afford more protections for freelancers.
“The devil is in the detail in terms of exactly how these initiatives will play out practically,” notes Gavin Tagg, Senior Vice President Associate General Counsel at Accurate, “but whatever happens there will be new challenges for HR departments to grapple with – and therefore more demand for employee relations specialists who can help companies adapt.”
What are the most impactful changes?
Among the many initiatives proposed, Tagg’s first highlight is that the right to not be unfairly dismissed will crystallise from the first day of employment. “While the rules on probationary periods haven’t been finalised, the fact that cases will be able to be brought sooner, and also that the period in which employees can bring a claim will be extended beyond three months, will bring added workload to HR departments,” says Tagg. Care will be needed to ensure employees are not asked to leave for perfunctory reasons, and organisations will be left on tenterhooks for a longer time to see if disgruntled former employees bring cases. It will become ever more important to ensure that your new hires have the skills, experience, and character required for the role during the recruitment process.
How will the changes to employment laws affect businesses?
The right to switch off will also be a new and possibly problematic addition to UK employment law. With similar measures in action in other countries, it’s reasonable to protect the rights of employees who may be under pressure from their employer to work all hours. However, the measure may yet be incompatible with flexible work and be difficult to manage should work deadlines require extended hours; peaks and troughs in workload are commonplace. This new rule may muddy the concept of a traditional ‘professional working day’.
Indeed, Tagg wonders if this measure may also increase the number of unfair dismissal claims, envisaging employees who may claim they have been unfairly dismissed for wanting to uphold their right to switch off. Certainly, he says, there could be potential for unscrupulous individuals to exploit the forthcoming rights to their advantage in order to make spurious claims against employers.
Tagg also flags changes around the law on collective redundancy consultation as a possible challenge for larger companies. The change means the need to consult will be triggered by the number of people affected by redundancies across the entire business, rather than the number in each physical workplace location, as is currently the case. The move is bound to increase the amount of consultation work required and consequently introduce more work for HR teams as they manage the process fairly and with compassion.
What new protections do these employment laws give employees?
The new government is also introducing measures which may address the more exploitative elements of the gig economy. Measures to counter ‘one sided’ zero hours contractual arrangements are being drawn up, while the definition of workers and employees is also being addressed in order to give the former similar rights to the latter.
There are pros and cons to this change: “The idea that you have two tiers of employees will be eliminated,” says Tagg, “and that’s welcome in many ways, because there’s less of an argument about what category these people fall into – full employment law will apply to them all.” But while this may reduce confusion, it will increase the number of people with employment rights, and consequentially could mean employers are less ready to increase the number of people working for them in any capacity. Most companies will have a permanent workforce, complemented by a flexible workforce, to allow them to manage workload during busier periods. These arrangements could be threatened by the new categorisation.
How will the changes impact screening?
Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay contains a number of other measures which are designed to enhance or improve employment rights in the UK, such as to end fire and rehire, the introduction of sick pay as a day one right, and the reporting of ethnicity and disability pay gaps. We are still awaiting full details as to what measures will become law and when they will become effective, but it is clear that the importance of getting your hire right the first time has never been more critical, as this new legislation increases the risks around a bad hire.
Want to find out what kind of background checks can help you make sure you hire the right candidate? Get in touch with our team at UKEnquiries@accurate.com.
