Parental Leave Rights   New changes came into effect on 10 January 2002

Queen’s golden Jubilee bank holiday   3rd June 2002

The World Cup – ‘Shall I go to work or watch footy?’   Will absenteeism be ripe in your company during the World Cup?

Draft Employment Bill 2002   

Parental Leave Rights

Before the new changes came in to effect, only parents of children born or adopted on or after 15 December 1999 qualified for the right to take 13 weeks unpaid parental leave.

The new rules now apply to qualifying parents with children who were born or placed with them for adoption between 15 December 1994 and 14 December 1999. These parents will have up to 31^st March 2005 to take parental leave.

The new rules have also increased the amount of unpaid leave available for parents of disabled children from 13 weeks to 18 weeks. This leave can be taken at any time up to the child’s 18th birthday.

Queen’s golden Jubilee bank holiday

Have you thought through how you intend to deal with this extra bank holiday in your workplace? This can be a complicated area with potentially serious consequences for the employer who gets it wrong. Click here to see how Picasso HR may help you get it right;

This year the government is allowing an additional bank holiday – 3^rd June for the Queen’s golden jubilee. They have also moved the bank holiday that would normally fall on the Monday at the end of May to 4^th June.

There are in total (in a normal year) 8 bank/public holidays in England & Wales.

1. There is no statutory obligation to allow time off, paid or unpaid for bank/public holidays.
2. Do you understand what your terms and conditions of employment say regarding bank/public holidays?
   1. Bank/public holidays can be included in the 4 normal working weeks (20 days) statutory requirement. This does not mean that employees are entitled to paid time off on the specific bank/public holidays. All employers need to do is ensure they meet their statutory obligation by ensuring that minimum holiday requirement is met in a 12 month period.
   2. You could allow bank/public holidays to be paid and additional to the statutory annual leave.
   3. You could arrange for additional pay or time off in lieu if bank/public holidays are worked.
3. Do your terms and conditions of employment specify the bank/public holidays e.g. Christmas day, New Year’s day etc allowed? If it is not specific, then there is room for ambiguity and the terms and conditions could be read as allowing leave for any bank holiday that may be introduced.
4. Ultimately, as we see it you have 5 options:
   • Allow 3^rd June as a paid additional day’s holiday.
   • Allow 3^rd June as a unpaid additional day’s holiday.
   • Treat it as a normal working day.
   • Treat it as a normal working day but allow a day off in lieu later.
   • Inform employees that it will be a non-working day and that it will be deducted from their holiday entitlement.

It really boils down to your working practices, organisational culture and size of your company.

The World Cup – ‘Shall I go to work or watch footy?’

Will absenteeism be ripe in your company during the World Cup?

If the majority of your employees are football crazy and football mad then you may just have something to worry about. It will be about recognising people’s desires and passions and yet not jeopardising customer service and productivity. Picasso HR have some tips to help you reduce absenteeism during the World cup.

• For a 7.30 a.m. kick off; and shift work is involved try moving the shift start times by 2 hours if possible
• The Company could record the game for play back at lunch time and allow a slightly longer lunch break – turn it in to a celebration/an event and get the Union Jack out, serve up cakes, nibbles etc and soft drinks. This could have a dramatically positive effect on employee relations.
• For a lunchtime kick off you could set up a TV in the canteen and allow a flexible start or end time to make up for any extra time taken during the lunch period.

Of course, the effectiveness of these are entirely dependent on the nature of your business, but we hope it’s given you something to go by.

Draft Employment Bill 2002

The draft Employment Bill was published by the DTI on 8 November 2001. Its provisions are intended to come into effect from April 2003.

The Bill proposes changes in the following areas:

• Maternity and paternity rights
• Employment tribunal reform
• Intra-company dispute resolution

Maternity and parental leave rights

Employment Tribunal Reform

In an attempt to modernise the Employment Tribunal system, the Bill also provides for:

• A change in the way Tribunals calculate awards to allow for the award of costs or expenses generally. It is hoped that this will encourage settlements in the workplace. For the first time it is also proposed that a party could in certain circumstances be compensated for the time spent in preparing his/her case;
• The introduction of a fixed period of conciliation to promote timely settlement of disputes; and
• The introduction of a fast track system to the Tribunals to bring the Tribunals into line with current court procedure.

Intra-company dispute resolution

This will require employees to raise any grievances with their employer before lodging a claim in the Tribunals. It is also intended that there will be implied into each employee’s contract provisions setting out statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedures and statutory grievance procedures.

The Bill envisages a number of changes in other areas of employment law, including the establishment of union learning representatives, a questionnaire procedure in equal pay cases, the introduction of work focused interviews for partners of people receiving working age benefits and a power enabling the Secretary of State to make regulations preventing less favourable treatment of fixed term employees.

The information contained in this bulletin is only intended to be a synopsis. Before acting on it, detailed professional advice should be taken.

The information in this newsletter is of a general nature and is not a substitute for professional advice. You are recommended to obtain specific professional advice before you take any action.

For further information, advice or assistance on any of the matters raised in this newsletter please contact Picasso HR on 01473 890037.

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