Threequent updates – Politics, Brexit & Redundancy

Politics in the workplace

With Theresa May announcing a snap election on the 8 June 2017, employers may be concerned about political debate finding its way into the workplace. However, employers can take steps to ensure this is kept to a minimum and conflict is managed correctly with a few simple steps:

• implementing a temporary ban or restriction on employees displaying visible political allegiances
• ensuring a clear and concise harassment policy is in place to ensure no debates or discussions are taken beyond what is appropriate for the workplace
• discouraging the use of social media during work hours
• discouraging debates in relation to sensitive issues such as race, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

For help with your own policies and procedures on acceptable behaviour in the workplace, speak to one of Ashtons’ HR and employment team.

Brexit – Employers’ wish list

Brexit is the hot topic of debate that will not go away. Law firm GQ Employment Law recently conducted a survey of UK finance firms and found that:

• more than 70 per cent of the 43 firms want to change the rules allowing staff on long-term sick leave to roll over their holiday pay
• almost one in three companies are pushing for a cap on the amount employment tribunals can award claimants in a discrimination and equal pay cases
• 56% want the requirement to pay employees an amount for overtime during holiday to be reversed.

Recent redundancy case – employers must act reasonably at every stage of the processThe Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) recently handed down judgement on Green v London Borough of Barking & Dagenham relating to the fairness of redundancy procedure. In this case the claimant and two others were competing for two newly created jobs which would replace the three existing jobs. The claimant obtained the lowest score in the assessment for the new job and was therefore dismissed.

In the first instance the Employment Tribunal determined it was not required to judge the fairness of the decision and applied the case of Morgan v Welsh Rugby Union without reference to statutory requirement to consider the reasonableness of the process. The EAT ruled this was not the correct approach and the tribunal should have considered whether the process of the dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses. This reaffirms the position in Morgan reemphasising the importance of applying the legal test of reasonableness.