News

With effect from 5th April 2020 the rates for the statutory pay associated with family leave will increase as follows:

Do you employ staff and worry about the implications of restricting the potential spread of the virus amongst your workers? You're not alone - so here are some questions and answers to help you plan to minimise the risk in relation to the current Corvid-19 issues.

Do you allow staff to use your computer systems for personal purposes like shopping or Facebook? Perhaps you allow this during lunch breaks, but recently a national law firm found that one of their employees had what they described as an, “unacceptable” level of personal internet use and this was her undoing. They dismissed her and the Liverpool Employment Tribunal agreed with them that their decision was reasonable.

Those of you who read the Cherington HR newsletter regularly may remember the case of a transgender woman who was awarded £47.5k for discriminatory behaviour by Primark employees a couple of years ago. (See https://cheringtonhr.com/news/428.) This time it was Debenhams who parted with £9k to settle a discrimination case brought by another transgender woman, who was told in an anonymous email that her job application had been rejected because of her gender identity.

Over the last few months I have been asked to deal with situations that have caused by, or resulted in, employees inappropriately expressing anger at work. I have had to deal with the fallout of individuals shouting at colleagues; furious outbursts; swearing at others; sulking; physical threats; temper tantrums including stamping of feet; sullen petulant behaviour and other dramatic expressions of feelings including petty retribution and manipulation. In short, these appear to be adults displaying typically childish playground behaviours, but in the workplace.