Publications

Following World Mental Health Day on Sunday 10th October 2021, we are reminded of the importance of mental health. Employers are becoming increasingly aware of the need to improve their emotional intelligence, develop compassion and demonstrate that they care about their employees.

Following a consultation that took place last year, the Government has announced that they will be introducing an entitlement to one week’s unpaid leave for carers. This is in recognition of approximately five million people in the UK providing unpaid support to an elderly or disabled relative or friend, whilst juggling other responsibilities including paid employment.

Last week, the government published a consultation document, “Making flexible working the new default” which includes its proposal to allow all employees to request flexible working arrangements from day one of their employment, replacing the current 26 week wait period.

This week has seen the opening of a new Government consultation on proposals to change the current flexible working framework. These proposals include making the right to request flexible working a day one right and consideration being given to the business reasons for refusing requests and the administrative process for dealing with these. Following the fundamental shift to flexible working during the pandemic, as employers now start requiring employees to return to the more traditional office based 9-5, we anticipate there will be an increase in flexible working requests.

In the case of Gwynedd Council v Barratt, the UK Court of Appeal has ruled that the refusal by the employer to allow an employee the right to an appeal against their dismissal by reason of redundancy, was a relevant factor in determining whether the dismissal was unfair or not; however, it would not make the dismissal inevitably unfair.

The High Court has ruled that the personal injury case of Farnham-Oliver v RM Educational Resources Ltd was able to proceed, despite the parties having entered into a Settlement Agreement to settle the same matter arising in an Employment Tribunal claim brought five years previously.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has upheld a tribunal’s decision that a prison officer should be compensated for career long loss resulting from discrimination and harassment he suffered because of his sexual orientation.

The global pandemic has seen a multitude of changes to the daily lives of individuals across the world and enforced home working has catapulted the working environment into a virtual and home based reality. Despite initial challenges, many organisations and individuals have seen the benefits of working from home. As such, employers up and down the country are beginning to consider making home working a new norm of the future by introducing home working or hybrid working policies.

The Employment Tribunal, in the case of Mhindurwa v Lovingangels Care Limited, has ruled that the Claimant in the matter, Mrs Mhindurwa had been unfairly dismissed due to the fact that her employer, Lovingangels Care Limited, had failed to consider furlough as a potential alternative to redundancy.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal in the case of Aleem v E-Act Academy Trust has ruled that providing an employee with her previous higher rate of pay when she moved to a different lower-paid job due to her disability was not considered to be a reasonable adjustment.

The case of Royal Mail Group Ltd v Efobi reviewed whether Section 136 (2) of the Equality Act 2010 (“Section 136 (2)”) had altered the burden of proof in employment cases alleging discrimination. Mr Efobi, the Claimant in this case, was arguing that the Equality Act had removed the burden of proof from Claimants to demonstrate that on the balance of possibilities, in the absence of an adequate explanation, an unlawful act of discrimination had been committed and instead created a neutral burden.

On 11 July 2019, the Government opened a consultation to review sexual harassment in the workplace on the back of the #metoo movement. That consultation closed on 2 October 2019 and given the intervening pandemic, the Government has only just released their response. This has confirmed that the Government intends to introduce a duty requiring employers to prevent sexual harassment.