In 2012, was that only three days ago?, we saw a few new laws including from April, the qualifying period for gaining employment protection rights against unfair dismissal increased from one year to two years for those starting a new employment on or after 6 April. Changes to employment tribunal procedures came into force on 6 April. These included: employment judges hearing some cases without lay panel members, increases in costs awards and deposit orders, and witness statements being taken as read. Later that year, in October we saw the commencement of Pensions auto-enrolment. Here larger employers are required to automatically enrol all eligible employees who are not already part of a workplace pension scheme into a qualifying workplace pension or the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) pension scheme. They are also required to make minimum contributions. Compliance is phased in later for medium and small employers. So what's in store this year.......? A change in the minimum consultation period for collective redundancies will see a reduction from 90 days to 45 days. In the summer, we expect to see the introduction of fees for bringing cases to Employment Tribunal in addition to an increase in compensation limits and a review of employment tribunal rules. There are lots of other developments too including increases in statutory payments (SMP), (SAP) and (SSP). Flexible parental leave and flexible working for ALL employees. If we can support you in any area of HR including what the employment law changes mean to you, please feel free to contact us.
I am a CIPD qualified HR Consultant and gained a wealth of my 20+ years experience working for a global private health care provider.
