Employers often provide benefits to employees which are not directly administered by the employer themselves. They use third-party providers instead. Private Health Insurance and Company cars are good examples of this. The employer will state in the employment contract that the employee is entitled to the named benefit. The employer will then have a separate commercial agreement with the benefit provider which facilitates this. The employee will not be party to this agreement and will often be entirely unaware of it.
Disclosure is the part of tribunal proceedings where each party — employee and employer — provides the other with a list of all the documents relevant to the issues in the claim. The employment tribunals have adopted the civil court rules in respect of disclosure and inspection of documents. Rule 31.6 of the Civil Procedure Rules requires a party to disclose the documents on which he relies, or which adversely affect his own or another party’s case and those which support any other party’s case.
Employers who need to make only a small number of redundancies must make sure that their consultation process doesn’t end up being a ‘tick box’ exercise.
To bring a claim for disability discrimination, an employee must be able to show that they (or someone they are associated with) is disabled. At what point in time is an assessment of disability made? In Ahmed v DWP, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the tribunal had erred by assessing whether the Claimant was a disabled person using a three-day date window. The discrimination allegations spanned several years.
If an employee submits their resignation to their employer, then this is a clear indication that the employment relationship is coming to an end. For whatever reason, the employee is moving on. Unless the employee is resigning because of some historic poor behaviour or discrimination on the part of the employer, the risk of claims is low.
Sexual harassment can take several different forms. It can refer to unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. This is what most people understand by the term. Under Equality Act 2010, the term also has a wider meaning. It incorporates unwanted conduct which occurs because a person has either rejected or accepted the sexual advances of another.
Preventing harassment in the workplace is often at the very top of HR’s to do list. Training and policies often focus on key problem areas such as sexual harassment. They don’t often include any reference to ‘smell harassment’. However, according to the Japanese newspaper ‘Mainichi’, there has been an increase (in Japan at least) in ‘smell harassment’ issues in the workplace. The newspaper reports that, as the weather in Tokyo gets hot and humid, the sweaty season has arrived. Employees are taking to social media to complain about the impact that bad smells from their colleagues are having on their working life. One reported feeling ‘dizzy’ because of the body odour of their colleague.
Around 83% of the UK population are active social media users. It comes as no surprise then that social media continues to have an influence in the workplace. As a result, employers must consider how to handle employee use of social media, both whilst they are at work and away from the workplace.
Bermans Employment Law experts invite you to attend one of two special seminars in April 2024, to provide you with important updates on the following areas of employment law:
A summary of key employment law developments in the last 12 months.
What to expect in 2024, and after the general election.
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