Employment Update
Religious Festivals and Holy Days
We are currently in the middle of Ramadan (Islamic holy festival) and this places certain constraints onto staff who wish to observe these festivals.
ACAS have provided some simple
information for employers about a range of holy festivals and suggestions to accommodate staff members’ religious requirements over these periods. This information should provide a useful source of reference.
Pay Forecasts
The CIPD have produced their latest pay forecasts. Key headline is the anticipated pay increases from all employers. The table below shows the Median level of
1-2% is the expected pay increase for the coming year. The full set of labour market forecasts for spring 2017 are available
here.
E-cigarettes
Occupational Health and Wellbeing (affiliated to CIPD), have published a simple summary to help guide employers. It explains the basis and background of E-cigarettes and also their undoubted benefits as an aid to stopping smoking.
It also covers key points to remember when dealing with workplace issues. This is very much an ongoing issue for many organisations as more research is done, new findings emerge and people increasingly turn to E-cigarettes as part of a smoking cessation plan. As such specific “vaping” policies are often developed to sit alongside the smoking at work policy. This guide can help in the structuring of such a policy.
Holiday pay arrears, NMW payments and other unlawful deductions
Some key legal confirmation was published during the last week of the month relating to holiday pay arrears, national minimum wage payments and other unlawful deductions.
In summary; an employee can present a claim to a Tribunal for any of these 3 issues (above) at any time where there is ongoing failure on the part of the employer (i.e. it is happening each and every month and continues to do so).
But this week the Tribunals confirmed that if there have been 3 consecutive months (or more) where the company did not infringe these laws, then the chain of continuous deductions is broken and the clock starts ticking such that an employee has only 3 months to submit a claim to a tribunal from the last known deduction/infringement – otherwise they forever lose the right to raise this particular issue.
So the key conclusion is if you may have infringed these laws – make an intervention now and correct the issue and you can stop the clock on future claims.
Things that may be covered here:
- Not including non-guaranteed overtime in holiday pay calculations
- Not including commission payments in holiday pay calculations
- Paying less than NMW
- Making too large an accommodation deduction from NMW
Making any other deduction from employee’s pay
