Running a business

An employee who was labelled “a pensioner” because of his age and placed “in the relegation zone” has been awarded £340,000 in compensation by the tribunal. These are both no-nos, but where else did the employer go wrong?

In November 2023 the Prime Minister fired the Home Secretary. In response, she sent a no holds barred letter criticising his conduct. If you dismiss an employee and they react in the same way, what should you do?

Sometimes an employee will decide that they don’t want to return to work after maternity leave. If you find yourself in this situation, can you simply draw a line under their employment, or must the employee still formally resign?

Q. We’ve been told that if we dismiss an employee and they subsequently issue an unfair dismissal claim, they’ve a duty to mitigate their losses . What does this mean? A. An employee who is dismissed for redundancy, capability or misconduct, and who wishes to issue an unfair dismissal claim is legally obliged to take reasonable steps to find alternative employment to reduce their loss of earnings. If they fail to do so the tribunal may refuse to award them their full loss of earnings, assuming their claim is successful. Where a former employee has failed to mitigate their losses , it is up to the employer to prove that this is the case; it can’t be a mere allegation. Also, the tribunal won’t automatically consider this issue - the employer has to raise it (but should only do so if there is adequate evidence which can be relied upon). ...

New Regulations. Following Brexit, certain EU-derived discrimination laws were due to be automatically removed at the end of 2023. To prevent this happening, the government has introduced the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) Regulations 2023 which are due to come into force on 1 January 2024. Amongst other things, these Regulations: confirm that discrimination on the grounds of breastfeeding falls under the protected characteristic of sex; grant individuals the right to claim indirect discrimination by association, i.e. where a person suffers less favourable treatment because they know a person with a protected characteristic and extends direct discrimination protection to cover statements made about not recruiting people with certain protected characteristic, e.g. age or race. ...

Apparently, 52% of candidates are reluctant to attend more than two interviews when applying for a new job. How long is the average job applicant prepared to wait to find out if they’ve got the job?