Age Discrimination Reminder   New anti age discrimination legislation to take effect from October 2006.

Important Change to Working Time Regulations from 6 April 2006   Implications for 48 hour weekly limit

Dismissing someone with under 12 months service……beware!   When thinking about dismissing an employee with less than 12 months service, don’t act hastily and assume you will be safe.

Spring Clean for the Year Ahead – Time to take stock   As we begin a new tax year, and spring finally feels like it is on the way, it is a good time to time to take stock and think about the year ahead.

Statutory Payments Increase With effect from 2 April 2006   Increases in statutory payments you need to be aware of.

Age Discrimination Reminder

Ministers will shortly announce new anti age discrimination legislation to take effect from October 2006. This gives employers approximately six months to prepare for the changes before new laws prevent discrimination against employees on the grounds of age.

There are some things you can think about now to ensure your business is prepared, below are some considerations for your recruitment and selection processes:

• Do not ask for date of birth or unnecessary dates of employment history in job applications.
• If you ask for a minimum level of experience for a position, make sure you can justify it.
  Think about advertising in a cross section of media to reach a wider audience.
• Train your managers to avoid stereotypes – for example that older workers are not energetic or dynamic or younger workers do not have the skills for management. Ask Picasso HR about providing equality training for your managers.
• Have a look at the results of your recruitment and selection – do you need to take positive action to help recruit certain age groups?

All Picasso HR customers will have an audit undertaken to ensure they are compliant with the forthcoming legislation in all areas of their employment policies and procedures. If you would like Picasso HR to undertake an audit of your employment policies please contact us on 01473 890037.

Important Change to Working Time Regulations from 6 April 2006

The Working Time Regulations (WTR) set a 48 hour weekly limit on working time. This is averaged over a 17 week period. The 48 hour week does not apply to workers such as senior managers and directors whose work is unmeasured. Until 6 April 2006 the 48 hour week also applied to those who chose to work extra hours voluntarily, known as partly-measured exemption.

However, from 6 April 2006 all of a worker’s working time, either voluntarily (partly- unmeasured) or under request will count towards the 48 hour maximum. So, if you have employees who regularly work additional hours, perhaps come in at 8am and are still at their desk at 7pm, despite what is written in their contract and they have not signed an opt out agreement, your organisation will be in breach of the Working Time Regulations.

When calculating working time, an employer needs to take the following into account:

• Contracted hours of work.
• Any time where a worker is expressly required to work, for example attendance at meetings or mandatory training courses.
• Any time a worker is implicitly required to work, for example because of requirements of the job or because of possible detriment if the worker refuses.
• This could include travelling time to and from customer sites etc.

For more information or guidance about how this change could affect your business please contact us on 01473 890037.

Dismissing someone with under 12 months service……beware!

When thinking about dismissing an employee with less than 12 months service, don’t act hastily and assume you will be safe. While an employee with less than 12 months service cannot claim unfair dismissal, there are certain instances where an employee could claim discrimination. Automatically unfair reasons for dismissal include discrimination on the grounds of:

• sex
• race
• disability
• sexual orientation
• religion or belief

Picasso HR recently supported a client with a short serving employee who had a poor sickness absence record, along with poor performance. On the face of it, it seemed a fairly straight forward situation, but, the reason for absence was back pain and there was an added complication of an ongoing medical problem. Picasso HR were able to advise that back pain could be considered a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and obtain an occupational health specialist’s assessment to determine whether this was in fact the case. In this case she was not classed as disabled under DDA. This only delayed the decision making process slightly, but potentially saved a claim for disability discrimination and unfair dismissal which could have a very costly outcome.

Spring Clean for the Year Ahead – Time to take stock

It is easy to get caught up in the day to day problems of running your business or team, but it is important to prepare for the future challenges and identify any possible problems in the forthcoming year. For example you might want to consider a skils audit to an audit of all your contracts, policies and procedures.

Find out here what else you might want to consider by reading the full article.

Here are some suggestions for a “spring clean”:

• Think about conducting a skills audit to map your team’s current capabilities against what you will need to deliver your goals over the next 12 months. Where you uncover gaps, develop plans to address them. Picasso HR could assist with a skills audit and help you put training plans in place to up-skill your people.
• Your staff need to understand clearly what you expect from them and what they need to deliver. Ensure you have job descriptions and objectives in place for everyone. Objectives should ideally link to organisational goals so people can clearly see how they are contributing to the business. Equally it will be easier for you to address any problems with performance if everyone is clear about what’s expected.
• Make communication with your team a priority. Think about introducing or revitalising team meetings or another kind of regular interaction. Ensure you are providing sufficient information to people about the business and progress and actively seek their feedback so you can gain their input and ideas.
• Measures are important, once objectives are in place for individuals, teams or businesses as a whole so you can measure progress against them. Once you have established what needs to be achieved, put measures or milestones in place so you can evaluate success throughout the year.
• Employment law is constantly changing and mistakes could be costly. Ensure you are up to date by carrying out an audit of your HR policies and procedures. Picasso HR could carry this out for you.
• Feedback and recognition are vital. Where people are achieving or exceeding milestones, acknowledge them and celebrate them to keep everyone’s enthusiasm high.

Statutory Payments Increase With effect from 2 April 2006

Maternity, paternity and adoption leave will increase from £75.00 to £108.85 per week (or 90% of the person’s average weekly earnings if less than £108.85). Statutory sick pay increases from 68.20 to £70.05 per week.

Look out for further changes to maternity leave next year when The Work and Families Bill increases statutory maternity leave from six months to nine months for pregnant employees with an expected week of childbirth on or after 6 April 2007.

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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