Employee Management Ltd

Firms can avoid the damaging public disclosure of information if they make moves to transform their work culture and reward whistleblowing, a prominent UK employment law professor has argued, in a development that will be of interest to the clients of our human resource consultants here at Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk).

The claim was made at a public debate at Middlesex University by the professor of employment law David Lewis, who said that it was vital for employees to be made aware that they would be rewarded rather than penalised in the event that they drew internal attention to forms of malpractice such as bribery and fraud. He even suggested that the prospect of employer intimidation and retaliation could be warded off by bringing “criminal charges against companies that victimised whistleblowers.”

Lewis made his case on the back of his own research which revealed that insufficient work was still being done by many clients of HR specialists to encourage employees to confidentially report wrongdoing. After visiting the websites of all of the FTSE Top 100 companies as of December 2011, Lewis found that 69 of the 100 firms failed to provide any information at all that referred to whistleblowing. As a result, key groups such as members of the public, customers, contractors and suppliers may have been left unaware as to how to confidentially report such issues as fraud or bribery.

Joining Lewis at the debate was accountant Wendy Addison, who spoke of her struggle for justice over an 11 year period after reporting fraudulent acts at the LeisureNet firm in South Africa. Lewis emphasised the importance of employees knowing that they were free to report wrongdoing in their companies without the fear of losing their job and being intimidated by colleagues, with Addison having experienced death threats both in South Africa and after her move to the UK.

Lewis added that in an age in which so many companies that make use of employment law services are fearful about embarrassing and financially detrimental public disclosures about themselves being made online or via the media, they could ultimately avoid this by making moves to protect, compensate and perhaps even reward whistleblowers. He said that making such arrangements would minimise such leaks outside of the company as it would make employees more likely to use the proper systems to report wrongdoing.

Government could play a key role in this change of culture, according to Lewis, by rewarding whistleblowers to set an example to companies. He said that this would lead to less fear and isolation being felt by prospective whistleblowers.

At Employee Management Ltd, our HR specialists can provide independent, impartial third party assistance in whistle blowing situations. They can also conduct comprehensive workplace investigations into related disciplinary and grievance matters. If a situation escalates to the point of litigation then tribunal representation is one of our key employment law services. To speak in confidence about any issue you may have in this regard, please contact one of our HR consultants without delay.

In what is being hailed as a landmark case, the Supreme Court has held that a compulsory retirement age was capable of justification. 

The case – Seldon v Clarkson Wright & Jakes – involved the compulsory retirement of a partner at a law firm.  Mr Seldon was required to retire at 65 in line with the firm’s policy of retiring partners at this age, and claimed that this amounted to direct age discrimination.

The Employment Tribunal rejected Mr Seldon’s claim, finding that the policy was justified as it was a proportionate means of achieving aims relating to opportunities within the firm and employee turnover.

Mr Seldon appealed initially to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, then to the Court of Appeal and subsequently to the Supreme Court, where his appeal was dismissed, although one aspect of the case  – to consider whether or not the aims could have been achieved by a retirement age other than 65 – has been remitted to the tribunal.

While the case clarifies the test for justifying direct age discrimination in terms of what employers need to show, employers are advised not to interpret this judgement as an indication that it is easy to specify a compulsory retirement age.

Justification for having a compulsory retirement age requires employers to show first of all that there is an aim, that the aim is legitimate in the particular circumstances of the case and/or potentially legitimate as a ‘public interest’ aim, and the means chosen to achieve the aim is both appropriate and necessary.

For example, to show that the aim of a compulsory retirement age to encourage a more diverse workforce by making way for younger workers was both appropriate and necessary, an employer may have to show that it had a problem recruiting young people in its particular industry and that this problem was specifically caused by the retention of older workers.

Similarly an employer who has a well developed performance management system in place would be unlikely to be able to justify having a compulsory retirement age to avoid the problem of confronting poor performance issues with older workers.

Employee Management Ltd is an HR consultancy with extensive experience and expertise in assisting employers develop and implement policies and procedures and providing other employment law services such as advice, training and representation at employment tribunals.

If you have any concerns in relation to the management of an aging workforce and planning for the future, please contact us.

Health and Safety consultants Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) can reveal that the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a ‘Myth Buster Panel’, which aims to prevent the misuse of Health & Safety legislation by employers, local authorities and insurance companies, amongst others. The panel has been created in order to provide advice to people who have been subject to “ridiculous or disproportionate” Health & Safety decisions at the hands of employers and organisations.

The Myth Busters Challenge Panel, chaired by Judith Hackitt, has been set up by the HSE to give a platform to those who believe they have experienced employers or organisations misusing Health & Safety legislation in order to prevent the carrying out of essentially sensible activities. Hackitt, speaking to The ICSA Chartered Secretary Magazine, said “Over the years we’ve seen some health and safety legislation invoked wrongly in defence of some pretty absurd decisions. When people hear about children being ordered to wear goggles to play conkers or the dangers of candyfloss on a stick it undermines public confidence in the true task of health and safety, which is to manage serious risk to life and limb in Britain’s workplaces. This is a great opportunity for the public to stand with us against the jobsworths and cynics who are trivialising Health and Safety to suit their own ends”.

Up until recently, the HSE has been seen to back unnecessary Health and Safety regulations, rather than disuade their misuse. In a statement on its website, the HSE said, “We want to make clear that ‘Health and Safety’ is about managing risks properly, not being risk averse and stopping people getting on with their lives”.

Notwithstanding this, Health and Safety legislation has become an increasingly complex area of employment law and consequently, remaining compliant can prove to be very stressful for those responsible for managing businesses. Breaches of regulations not only place employees at risk, but can also expose employers and directors to threats of criminal prosecution.

Employee Management Ltd’s range of Health and Safety services provide employers with simple, cost-effective solutions aimed at achieving a safe working environment and ensuring compliance with the relevant legislation.

For further details in this regard, or in relation to any of our other employment law services, please contact any of the Health and Safety consultants at Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) without delay.

From October 2012, employers will be required to auto-enrol eligible jobholders into a qualifying workplace pension scheme. The actual date from which employers will have to do (known as the “staging date”) will depend on the size of their PAYE scheme as at the 1 April 2012, and no matter how significant a change there is in the size of an employer’s workforce after 1 April 2012, it will not affect the staging date. 

The duty to auto-enrol is being phased in gradually, beginning with employers with 120,000 or more individuals in their PAYE scheme in which case it will commence on 1 October 2012. The staging dates for employers with between 250 and 119,999 employees will then fall at regular intervals between 1 November 2012 and 1 February 2014.

Staging dates for employers with between 50 – 249 individuals will be between 1 April 2014 and 1 April 2o15. For employers with fewer than 50 individuals, 1 June 2015 will be the earliest date the duty will apply to them.

Eligible job holders are those who work under a contract to perform services personally, who are not currently in a pension scheme which meets the Government’s new standards, and who:

1. are aged 22 or over;
2. are under State Pension age (currently 65 years);
3. earn more than £8,105 a year (tax threshold 2012/13);
4. work in the UK.

Workers who are not eligible jobholders will still have the right to opt into a pension scheme.

Contributions from employers will start at a minimum of 1% of qualifying earnings rising to 3% over the next 6 years. Employees’ contributions will start at a minimum of 2% increasing to 8%.

Employee Management Ltd is an HR consultancy with extensive experience in assisting employers to manage the impact of changes in legislation and implement policies and procedures to comply with them. Contact  us if you need further information on what Pension Auto Enrolment will mean for your business.

Cammell Laird, the Merseyside shipbuilding and engineering company, has been fined £120,000 and ordered to pay over £12,000 in costs over the death of a welder who became trapped while driving a forklift truck.

The accident happened when the welder was using the truck to transport heavy welding equipment at the shipyard and he had become crushed between the truck and a lifting beam on a crane.

The Company was prosecuted after an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the welder had been able to drive the truck despite not having any training.

The court was told that keys were routinely left in the ignition of forklifts, that the employee had driven a truck on several occasions without being challenged about his lack of training, and that no procedures were in place to inform employees who was and who was not authorised to drive the trucks.

Commenting on the case, the HSE Inspector said

“A company the size of Cammell Laird should have known better than to have allowed keys to be routinely left in forklift trucks, making driving a truck the easy option for employees wanting to transport heavy equipment. The dangers of forklift trucks are well known in the manufacturing industry…”.

While expressing deepest regret that this tragic incident had taken place, a Company spokesperson stated  that the Company had cooperated fully with the HSE throughout the investigation and, referring to its previously commendable safety record, confirmed its continuing commitment to ensuring the safety of its workforce.

If you wish to discuss any aspect of fork lift truck operation or need to provide training/refresher training for your FLT operators, please contact one of one Health and Safety consultants.

Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) is an HR support provider that can provide organisations of all shapes and sizes with assistance in the fields of employment law, recruitment, conflict resolution and health and safety. Due to our human resources expertise, we are often called upon to provide HR training courses on a broad range of related subjects.

Difficult decisions on employment issues are a daily challenge to employers. When you get in touch with our HR specialists, we can make it easier for you to negotiate employment legislation and regulations that are often confusing and frequently daunting. As wide and as tailored a range of HR services as we offer, however, you may wish to consider embedding that managerial knowledge and expertise a little more effectively.

In order to do just that, you may choose to invest in our comprehensive HR training services. The full portfolio of courses encompasses such key areas of EML knowhow as age discrimination, managing appraisals, discipline in the workplace and valuing diversity. The courses are delivered by our expert HR consultants, all of whom have experience across multiple sectors, and can take place either on your own premises, or at our own offices.

The overall aim of our HR training courses is to better equip your managers – and there are several levels of management to which our sessions can be pitched – to deal with the very practical employment issues that can confront them in the workplace. As a result of undertaking our HR courses, your key personnel will be better placed to foresee and resolve potential problems, in addition to improving employee relations.

From the one-day Valuing Diversity workshop that concentrates on the business benefits of diversity and how it can positively manifest itself in the workplace, through to Age Discrimination training that allows managers to more effectively recognise and prevent workplace age discrimination in the context of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, we know how to design courses that meet very specific requirements.

Other popular HR courses of ours include the Basic Employment Law course that helps you to swerve clear of costly employment tribunals, while there is also a Discipline in the Workplace course that has a similar aim – in this case, with the emphasis firmly on the effective handling of conduct, capability or incapacity issues. This latter programme runs you through the disciplinary and grievance process with a view to identifying common pitfalls that often undermine the employer’s defence of any resultant litigation.

Call Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk), on 01942 727 200, for more information about the full range of employment law services that we provide.

In Bailey v R&R Plant Hire (Peterborough) Ltd the Court of Appeal has held that a statutory retirement notice informing an employee of their right to request not to retire must specifically cite paragraph 5 of Schedule 6 of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006.

The 2006 Regulations enabled an employer to retire employees at the age of 65 providing that they followed the prescribed procedure. They had to notify the employee in writing of the intended date of retirement and inform them of the right to request not to retire. If the employee made a request not to retire, a meeting would be held to consider the request and a decision made.

The Court was asked to determine what information employers had to give employees at the point they gave notice of intended retirement. The decision was that the employer was required to tell the employee that he had a right to make a request not to retire and to explicitly state that this was ‘pursuant to paragraph 5 of schedule 6 of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006’. The Court added that the employee must also have been told that the employer was invoking a statutory procedure and not just writing to terminate employment.

Whilst the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 were repealed last year, this decision will be significant to any employer that issued a notice of intended retirement that was not explicit in relation to the essential conditions under paragraph 5 of the Regulations.

Such employers should review any such cases where the retirement has not yet taken effect with a view to recovering the situation via remedial action which may involve changing the decision to dismiss, or at least revisiting the reason for dismissal.

Employee Management Ltd can help ensure the effective management of performance and procedural fairness of related dismissals via the provision of robust policies. We can also undertake comprehensive workplace investigations into disciplinary and grievance issues, and if a situation escalates to litigation then tribunal representation is one of our main employment law services. If your business has a current need in any of these areas, please contact us without delay.

A cleaning company has been fined £175,000 after one of its employees was killed by an industrial waste compactor in Bolton.

An employee’s neck was broken when the lid on the large metal container slammed down on him at the Royal Bolton Hospital in Farnworth in 2006.

ISS Mediclean, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found the company had allowed porters to load the waste compactor in an unsafe manner.

The HSE concluded that the most likely explanation for the 58-year-old’s death was that he leaned against a lever while leaning over the waste compactor, causing the lid to snap down.

The manufacturer’s recommendations for the compactor stated that it should be loaded from the front, away from the controls, but the court was told it was standard practice for porters to load it from the side.

ISS Mediclean Ltd, part of the ISS group which employs more than 43,500 people around the world, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 after failing to provide a safe system of work for its employees.

The company was fined £175,000 and ordered to pay £42,000 in prosecution costs.

An HSE Inspector said: “ ISS Mediclean, should have done more to make sure that the employee and his colleagues were using the waste compactors safely. The lids snapped down instantly when the levers were operated so the employee had no chance of getting out of the way.

“The industrial waste compactors clearly had the potential to put lives in danger so the company should have carried out a proper risk assessment to make sure its employees stayed safe.”

Our Health and Safety consultants can help to provide suitable and sufficient risk assessments for all activities and can assist in most Health and Safety matters. Please contact us without delay for a no–obligation quotation if you are an employer in need of such assistance. 

It is in the Budget where many of the year’s key changes to the employment law and recruitment landscape are first announced, and the situation was no different as far as the 2012 Budget was concerned. In today’s blog, the HR specialists at Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) run the rule over the latest developments from George Osborne’s Budget Box to affect businesses across the UK.

With the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) having forecast unemployment levels to hit their peak – at 8.7% – later this year, before declining on a year-by-year basis to 6.3% by 2016-17, there was also a prediction that one million more jobs would be created in the economy over the next five years. It came alongside a prediction that the UK economy would grow at a quicker rate than previously forecast – or more specifically, by 0.8% in 2012, up from the OBR’s 0.7% autumn estimate.

Osborne also announced that Sunday trading laws would be relaxed on eight Sundays during the Olympics and Paralympics that start in July, with the plan entailing the passing of emergency legislation that would allow large shops in England and Wales to trade for more than six hours during the Games. The Chancellor told BBC One’s Andrew Marr show of the “great shame” that would result for a Britain that bore a “closed for business” sign during the Games, although opposition came from his Labour shadow counterpart Ed Balls, who urged proper consultation first.

Also of potentially great interest to users of EML’s HR consultancy and employment law services were the following significant developments:

1. The reduction of the 50% higher tax rate to 45% from April 6, 2013, which was founded on the Government’s belief that the previous rate had not yielded the amount of tax that it had been expected to at the time of its introduction. It was also thought that the 50% rate may have had a negative effect on the economy and the UK’s image as a place to do business. The new rate applies to employees that have an income of more than £150,000.

1. The pledge to “scrap or improve 84% of health and safety legislation”. The aim of this change will be to ensure that employers are no longer in breach of their duties in civil law in the event that they have done everything that is reasonably practicable and foreseeable to ensure the protection of their employees. Part of the aforementioned plan will include handing the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) the authority to direct all activities relating to local authority health and safety inspection and enforcement.

As always, firms can always turn to the human resource consultants at Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) for advice on adapting to such legislative changes.

An additional bank holiday has been declared this year to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. It will be on Tuesday 5^th June and the spring bank holiday has been moved from the last Monday in May to Monday 4^th June making it a double bank holiday

Although employers are not obliged to recognise the additional bank holiday – unless their contractual terms specify an entitlement to it –  many will see the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee as a celebration which they will want their staff to have the opportunity to participate in.

However, the double bank holiday means that employees will only need to take three days of annual leave in order to gain a full week’s break from work. It also coincides with school holidays – meaning you may be facing a flood of holiday requests for that period.

Planning ahead at this stage could avoid last-minute leave request clashes.

This starts with having a properly documented process for the booking and approval of holiday leave. Staff should be reminded of the Company’s procedures and Managers should ensure that these are followed. It is then a case of applying a fair and consistent method of managing the leave requests.

Staff should also be made aware of the implications should they absent themselves from work following the refusal of a holiday leave request.

Employee Management Ltd is an HR consultancy with extensive experience in originating policies and procedures. Contact us if you need help with drawing up a holiday leave policy and procedure.