Employment

Monitoring employees: Guidance on privacy in the workplace

The recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Barbulescu v Romania (see our Be Aware blog post of 7 September) has placed the spotlight once more on the extent to which employers are permitted to monitor their employees’ communications and activities. The adoption of new information technologies in the workplace allows for …

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ECHR confirms that employers do not have green light to monitor employee emails

Further to our Be Aware post of 1 February 2016 on 5 September 2017  the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights overturned the Lower Chamber’s judgment in Barbulescu v Romania and held the dismissal of an employee after his employer monitored his Yahoo Messenger communications and discovered that he had used the …

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Brexit: Update on future rights of EU citizens in the UK

In an update to our Be Aware article of 12 July 2017, Government publishes proposals for EU nationals, the UK and the EU have just concluded the latest round of their Brexit negotiations which will be of interest to employers who are monitoring developments as part of a communications strategy for keeping EU nationals in …

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Government publishes Statement of Intent on proposals for new data protection laws

On 7 August 2017, Government publishes its Statement of Intent (SoI) on ‘A new Data Protection Bill: Our planned reforms’. The SoI states that implementation of the GDPR and repeal of the Data Protection Act (DPA) will be done in a way that so far as possible preserves the concepts of the DPA to ensure …

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Holiday pay must include payment for any voluntary overtime normally worked

In the latest instalment to the litigation surrounding the correct calculation of holiday pay, the EAT has held that payment for voluntary overtime that is normally worked is within the concept of ‘normal remuneration’ and should therefore be taken into account in calculating holiday pay for the 4 weeks of holiday provided for by the …

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Supreme Court ends employment tribunal fees with immediate effect

Employment tribunal fees were introduced for the first time in July 2013, and have been subject to challenge ever since. Over the course of the last 4 years, UNISON has launched two judicial reviews, both of which were unsuccessful in the High Court.  In 2015, UNISON’s appeal to the Court of Appeal failed.   Leave to …

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Government publishes proposals for EU nationals

After many months of speculation about the Government’s proposals for European nationals[1] currently living and working in the UK, the Government has now published its Policy Paper setting out its plans.  This is welcome news to employers employing European nationals in their workforce. Whilst the terms of the Policy Paper are still, of course, subject …

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Taylor Review report into employment practices in the modern economy published

The Taylor Review’s final report on employment practices in the modern economy has been delivered to Government and published on 11 July 2017. The Review panel, chaired by Matthew Taylor, has made a number of recommendations for specific measures which the Review panel would like to see enacted as soon as possible, but also makes …

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Queen’s Speech unveils employment law changes

Today the Queen unveiled the Government’s legislative programme for the new two-year Parliament. This included a number of employment law reforms, aside from the impact of Brexit: There will be a new national policy on immigration. However, there is currently very little detail about what the new policy will be. The Conservative party manifesto included …

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Practical impacts of GDPR on the employment relationship

In the next of our series of briefings on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we focus on some more of the practical impacts of GDPR on the employment relationship and what businesses can do to manage these and prepare for implementation by May 2018. Data subject access requests Under the GDPR, employees will have …

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Preparing for the GDPR: New employee data subject rights could disrupt core HR procedures

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), due to come into force throughout the EU including the UK on 25 May 2018, will force through a culture change in terms of attitudes to data privacy, according to the Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. Speaking at the Data Protection Practitioners’ Conference 2017, Denham warned that organisations risking damaging …

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The clock is now ticking for employers to publish their gender pay gaps

Today marks the beginning of the one year gender pay gap reporting countdown for every employer with  250 or more employees. Within the next 12 months, each of these employers will have to wrestle with the Government’s new complex regulations, get to grips with the various calculations, and finally publish details of their gender pay …

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