The 1st April saw changes in a few of the employment laws to do with holidays, sick days and flexible working hours. So, what are they and how are they going to affect your business?

Holiday Entitlement

As has previously been discussed on here, from the beginning of this month, holiday entitlement for those working a generic five day week increases from 24 days to 28 days.

If your employees are part-time whose leave year begins after April 1st this year, in order to calculate their holiday you simply need to divide the minimum entitlement (28 days) by the number of days each week that they are contracted to work. So if an employee works for you 2 days a week, they are entitled to 14 days holiday.

Statutory Sick Payment

Whatever your business, illness among your staff is always going to be a major issue that can cause problems, especially at the moment when the economy is so tight that many employers have had to make cuts in staff.

However, from the 5th of April this year, it became legal that workers who take time off due to illness must receive a minimum payment of at least £123.06 each week during their leave. This includes the standard rate for Maternity and Paternity leave pay.

Flexible Working Regulations

It was already regulation that employees with staff under the age of 6 were legally entitled to flexible working hours, but recently this has been extended. The law now covers people that have been under your employ for at least 26 weeks, that are also parents of children up to the age of 16, or disabled children under the age of 18. This is as long as the requests made are reasonable and do not affect the business or the individual’s ability to do their job in a negative way.

Disciplinary and Dismissal Procedures

There has also been a change in the method of handling disputes in the workplace. This comes under the Employment Act 2008 and advises that The Advisort, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) are launching a new service to deal with workplace disagreements before they reach a tribunal.

This was primarily set up to deal with unfair dismissal and discrimination cases, but it will soon be expanded so that it includes other issues, for example redundancy payments and illegal wage deductions.

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