Don’t leave everything to the lawyers… it pays to be aware of new employment laws and the implications for your organisation. This will also ensure you don’t get caught out when your team members raise the topic of new rights at work.
Recent legislation has expanded a number of rights for employees, including around flexible working, paid and unpaid leave and protection from redundancy during parental leave. Here’s a quick summary of the new employment laws that you need to know about (All apply to England, Scotland and Wales):
- Flexible working
Employees:
- Can now make two (rather than only one) requests a year for flexible working.
- Are no longer required to explain the impact on the organisation of their request for flexible working.
- Can make a request for flexible working from day one of their employment (there is no longer a 26-week qualifying period).
Employers:
- Must respond to requests within two months (the deadline was previously three months).
- Must explain the reasons for denying any request. (The list of reasons why employers can refuse requests remains the same, for example, cost to the business or the effects on performance, quality or the ability to meet customer demand.)
- Carer’s unpaid leave
Employees are now entitled to one week’s unpaid leave a year if they have caring responsibilities. A week means the amount of time the employee usually works over seven days. Employees have this right from the first day of their employment.
This could involve the care of a spouse, civil partner, child, parent or other dependant whose care needs are likely to go on for at least three months because of a disability, illness, old age or injury.
Carer’s leave can be taken all at once or in smaller chunks such as days or half-days.
- Pregnancy, adoption and redundancy
For pregnant employees, protection against redundancy now begins on the day the employer is notified of the pregnancy and ends 18 months after the date of the child’s birth. This also applies to parents who take at least six weeks of shared parental leave.
Parents who take adoption leave are protected for 18 months after the date of adoption.
- Paternity leave: more flexibility
Employees who take statutory paternity leave can now:
- Split their two weeks’ entitlement into two separate one-week blocks, rather than having to take them together.
- Take their two weeks at any time within the first year after their child’s birth (rather than within the first eight weeks as previously required).
- Give their employer 28 days’ notice for each week of leave (down from the previous requirement of 15 weeks’ notice). However, employees are still required to give notice of their upcoming entitlement to leave 15 weeks before the baby’s due date.
- Sexual harassment protection
From October 2024, employers will be required to take ‘reasonable steps’ to protect employees from sexual harassment in the course of their work.
And that’s not all…
Keep an eye out for future potential changes too. For example:
- Employees who have a child in neonatal care will be granted up to 12 weeks of paid neonatal care leave – expected to be in force by April 2025.
- A right to statutory sick pay from the first day of illness rather than after three days.
- Protection from unfair dismissal from the first day of employment (currently this right comes into force after two years of continuous employment).
- A right to ‘disconnect’ to promote a better work/life balance.
- Compulsory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for employers with at least 250 employees.
- Statutory entitlement to bereavement leave.
