SYLO | Beyond HR. are delighted to work with many diverse businesses. The one thing all our businesses have in common is the need to keep abreast of important upcoming changes to UK Employment Legislation, and to take appropriate action on areas which will impact you as an employer.
Below you will find a summary of the key changes and updates right up to April 2020 that you should be aware of.
Should you wish to discuss any of the topics highlighted below and the impact and requirements for your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
1) Brexit
The UK left the European Union on 31st January 2020. As a business, you will have no doubt been keeping close to the latest developments and the wider impact this may have on your operations. As an employer, you may employ workers from the EU or EEA countries or Switzerland. Whilst EU workers will continue to have the right to live and work in the UK upon Brexit date until the end of 2020, there is a requirement that they will need to apply for ‘settled status’. Whilst it’s the responsibility of the individual and not the employer to make an application to the EU Settlement Scheme, it is advised that Employers be pro-active in checking in with any employees who may be affected to check-in that they have taken action on this, to ensure continuity of employment will not be affected in the future. The deadline for applying is currently 30 June 2021. Further information can be found on the GOV.UK website or by following this link https://www.gov.uk/settled–status–eucitizens–families
We will keep you abreast of the Government’s plans on introducing a points-based immigration system from 2021; this is being introduced once the freedom of movement with the European Union has ended.
Whilst we do not know what the status of EU national employees will definitively be in the future, it is definitely in an employer’s interest to ensure that employees have settled status to avoid the risk of being fined for employing someone who no longer has the right to work here.
SYLO | Beyond HR. are happy to discuss individual cases with you directly should you have any further questions.
2) National Minimum Wage Increases
Each year the Government sets a new minimum rate per hour that you must pay workers. This is called the National Minimum Wage or the National Living Wage for workers aged 25 or over.
The table below shows the current NMW and the new NMW from 1 April 2020.
| Age Band | Current rate | Rate from 1 April 2020 |
| 25 and over | £8.21 | £8.72 |
| 21 to 24 | £7.70 | £8.20 |
| 18 to 20 | £6.15 | £6.45 |
| Under 18 | £4.35 | £4.55 |
| Apprentice | £3.90 | £4.15 |
The increases to National Minimum Wage are expected to benefit 2.8 million workers. Employers should check for any employees who may be at the current NMW rate and prepare to increase to the new rate effective 1 April.
What to plan and budget for in future: The Government has previously announced that they intend to raise the National Living Wage to at least £10.50 from April 2024, so businesses might want to start planning for that now as it will make a significant difference to salary costs. For example, an employee working 40 hours per week will earn £70 per week more – this is without factoring in Employers National Insurance Contributions, pension or any other benefits linked to their pay.
3) Good work plan
The Good Work Plan is a Government-backed review of the future vision of the UK labour market which was published in December 2018. The review made a number of recommendations of which the Government are implementing the following during 2020:
a) Agency Workers
Specifically, relevant to those businesses who employ Agency workers – The Government has made a commitment to abolish a legal loophole known as ‘Swedish Derogation’ in the rules governing the use of agency workers. This allowed agencies to opt-out of equalising the pay of agency staff with the permanent workforce when they had been with the same employer for more than 12 weeks, provided they paid the agency workers between assignments.
The opt-out will cease on 6 April 2020 when the Agency Workers (Amendment) Regulations 2019 come into force.
This is a complex piece of legislation and does not affect all agency workers. If your business extensively uses agency workers and you would like to understand this further, please do get in touch.
b) Holiday/Annual Leave for casual or seasonal workers
The Government is lengthening the reference period for determining an average weeks’ pay from 12 weeks to 52 weeks from 6 April 2020. This will impact those who employ casual or seasonal workers in respect to calculating their annual leave entitlement. Please get in touch to discuss further if this may be of impact.
If you are using our cloud-based HR system Breathe, from April 2020, businesses will be able to use their new rota module. This will help reduce the administration for teams working shift patterns and assist businesses to calculate holiday across 52 weeks.
c) Issuing of Employment Contracts
The third change under the Good Work Plan, effective 6 April 2020, extends the entitlement to receive a statement of ‘written particulars’ (an employment contract) to include ‘workers’ as well as employees and to make it a day one right. This means that all workers and employees must receive a written contract of employment on the first day of employment. Currently, employers have up to two months to issue. Employers will also be required to provide additional information in the written statement, to include information on the length of time a job is expected to last, the notice period, eligibility for sick leave and pay, other rights to leave, any probationary period, all pay and benefits, and specific days and times of work.
SYLO | Beyond HR. can support your business get ready for this change by reviewing your current contracts of employment to ensure they cover all elements required as well as supporting you with your onboarding process to ensure contracts are issued to new starters in time.
4) IR35 – extends to the Private Sector
The IR35 (off payroll) rules prevent contractors working through Personal Service Companies (PCS), who are in similar roles to employees, paying less tax and NICs than employees. When the rules were introduced, contractors themselves assessed whether IR35 applied to them but, in April 2017, public sector employers were made responsible for deciding contractors’ tax status and for deducting the right amount of tax and NICs from fees they were paying to their PSCs.
From 6 April, this responsibility applies to all large and medium-sized private sector employers in a tax year with:
- More than 50 employees
- An annual turnover over £10.2 million A balance sheet worth over £5.1 million.
If your business is considered large to medium-sized as per the above criteria, you should take steps to identify any contractors you have and assess whether IR35 rules may apply to them.
Gov.UK have lots of information on their website as well as an online assessment to check a
contractors status https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding–off–payroll–working–ir35
5) Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay
On 23 January 2020, the Government announced that the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 will be coming into force on 6 April 2020.
The Act gives employees who lose a child under the age of 18, or suffer a stillbirth from the 24th week of pregnancy, the right to two weeks’ leave as a ‘day one’ employment right. The leave, which can be taken as one block or as two one week blocks, will be paid at the same statutory rate as other family-friendly rights if the employee has 26 weeks’ service. Employers who offer other enhanced family-friendly pay arrangements may, however, wish to offer an enhancement to Parental Bereavement Leave.
The leave will be available during the first year after the child’s death.
Employed parents are already entitled as a day one right to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with emergencies involving a dependent, including dealing with a dependent’s death.
As an employer, you should ensure that this new Act is incorporated into your policies/Handbook ready for the 6 April. SYLO | Beyond HR. can assist you with this.
And finally……
As a valued client, we would like to keep you updated regularly on key topics which we feel would be of interest to you and your business, details of our open training workshops and a quarterly Employment Law round-up. Should you not wish to receive these updates then please let us know.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2020.