This is the first of our quarterly updates for 2024. As we expected there are going to be some significant changes to employment law this year and business owners need to be prepared for these changes to policy and implementation of new rights. We hope you enjoy this edition, and please do contact us if you would like to have a review of your current policies to ensure you are ready for the implementation of these new rights.  

 

Working Time Regulations – 1 January 2024 

All full-year workers, except those who are genuinely self-employed, are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid statutory holiday entitlement per year. Four weeks of this entitlement must be paid at a worker’s ‘normal’ rate of pay (as specified by Regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations). This could include regular payments, such as overtime, regular bonuses and commission. The remaining 1.6 weeks’ entitlement can be paid at ‘basic’ rate of pay, that is, the worker’s basic remuneration (as specified by Regulation 13A). 

 

The regulations do not state which entitlement should be used first. Many employers choose not to distinguish between the 2 pots of leave, and to pay the entire 5.6 weeks at the ‘normal’ rate of pay. If an employer wishes to pay different holiday rates for different periods of leave, then they should consider explaining this clearly and consistently to the worker, for example in the worker’s contract or staff handbook. 

 

Holiday pay is based on the legal principle that a worker should not suffer financially for taking holiday. The amount of pay that a worker receives for the holiday they take depends on the number of hours they work and how they are paid for those hours. Pay received by a worker while they are on holiday should reflect what they would have earned if they had been at work and working. 

 

From 1 January 2024, the components which must be included when calculating ‘normal’ rate of pay are defined in regulations. The following payments must be included in the 4 weeks of normal (regulation 13 leave) holiday pay:  

  • payments, including commission payments, intrinsically linked to the performance of tasks which a worker is contractually obliged to carry out. 
  • payments relating to professional or personal status relating to length of service, seniority or professional qualifications. 
  • other payments, such as overtime payments, which have been regularly paid to a worker in the 52 weeks preceding the calculation date. 
  • Workers with regular hours and fixed pay must receive the same holiday pay as the pay they would receive if they were at work and working. For example, workers typically on a fixed monthly salary, if they take a week’s holiday, they will receive the same pay at the end of the month as they normally receive. 

 

If you have any questions regarding this, please contact enquiries@sylobeyondhr.com 

 

Rolled Up Holiday Pay – update 

Rolled-up holiday pay allows employers to include an additional amount with every payslip to cover a worker’s holiday pay, as opposed to paying holiday pay when a worker takes annual leave. 

  • The regulations allow employers to use rolled-up holiday pay as an additional method for calculating holiday pay for irregular hour and part-year workers only, for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. 
  • The calculation of holiday pay by employers is 12.07% of a worker’s total pay as 12.07% is the proportion of statutory annual leave in relation to the working weeks of each year, for example, 5.6 weeks of statutory annual leave divided by 46.4 working weeks of the year. 
  • Employers using rolled-up holiday pay should calculate it based on a worker’s total pay in a pay period. A pay period is the frequency at which workers get paid, that is weekly, fortnightly, monthly, and the like.   
  • If you intend to start using rolled-up holiday pay, you should check their workers’ contract in case this amounts to a variation of contract.  
  • This payment is to be clearly marked as a separate item on each payslip. The holiday pay should be paid at the same time as the worker is paid for the work done in each pay period.  
  • The holiday pay should be paid at the same time as the worker is paid for the work done in each pay period.  
  • Rolled-up holiday pay is to be paid in addition to the worker’s normal salary, which should be at National Minimum Wage or above.  

Employers that do not want to use rolled-up holiday pay for irregular hour and part-year workers can continue to use the existing 52-week reference period to calculate holiday pay for irregular hour workers if they choose to do so. 

If a worker who receives rolled-up holiday pay goes off sick or takes maternity / family-related leave during a pay period, their rolled-up holiday pay would be calculated according to average amount of the worker’s total earnings in each pay period during the 52-week relevant period. 

If you would like some further advice as to how this works in practice, please contact us on enquiries@sylobeyondhr.com or read our Holiday Calculations Advice Sheet.  

 

 

Flexible working – to become a ‘Day One’ right  

The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill is to be implemented from 6th April 2024.  

  • Employees will have the right to request, from day one of the employment relationship, rather than a right to have, flexible working. 
  • Two requests will be allowed in a 12-month period. 
  • The employer will need to respond to the request within 2 months. 
  • The request cannot be rejected without consultation.  
  • If the request is rejected, it must be due to one of the 8 permitted reasons.  

 

If the request is rejected, then employers should try the following options: 

  • Suggest alternatives to the request. 
  • Allow the change to be temporary rather than permanent. 

 

Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act  

This Act is scheduled to come into effect on 6th April 2024, earlier than expected. It will increase the level of protection against redundancies for new and expectant mothers. Employers are already required to provide suitable replacement roles, if there are any, as an alternative to redundancy to workers on maternity, parental, or adoption leave. Employees that fit into this category should receive preferential treatment over other workers who could be made redundant.  

 

This new measure enables the extension of this protection to expectant women who are not yet on maternity leave and to new parents who are returning to work after taking maternity, parental, or adoption leave. Redundancy protection periods will be extended to begin on the day an employee informs her employer that she is pregnant and end 18 months after the baby is born. This will give women an additional six months of protection. 

 

Paternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 

There will be several changes to paternity leave from 06 April 2024 following the government’s publication of the Paternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024. 

  • Employees taking paternity leave will be able to take their statutory two-week entitlement as two separate blocks of one week (if they choose to do so), rather than the current position which requires it to be taken as either two consecutive weeks, or just one single week in total. 
  • Paternity leave will be able to be taken any time during the 52 weeks after the birth. Currently, paternity leave has to be taken in the 56 days following birth. 
  • Employees will only need to give you 28 days’ notice that they intend to take statutory paternity leave. Currently, employees need to give you a minimum of 15 weeks’ notice before the Expected Week of Childbirth (EWC). 
  • These changes will apply in all instances where the EWC is on or after 06 April 2024. 

 

Carers Leave Act 2023  

This law will be enacted on 6th April 2024, by which time you’ll need to be prepared to deliver changes to the way you offer support to all unpaid carers in your workforce. 

  • This will be a day one right for all employees regardless of length of service. 
  • Employees will have a new entitlement to take up to one week unpaid leave per year to provide/arrange care for dependents with long term care needs.  
  • Long-term care is an illness lasting over 3 months, a disability or old age. 
  • Carers taking this leave will not need to present how or for whom it will be used for.  
  • Notice to take this leave will need to be twice as many days as the amount of leave to be taken, with a minimum of 3 days’ notice. E.g. to take 2 days leave, 4 days’ notice must be given.  

 

The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions Act) 2023  

The implementation of this Act may be as early as September 2024, we are awaiting confirmation of this. But what does it mean for employers with Zero hours and fixed term employees?  

 

Workers right across the country will be given more say over their working patterns thanks to new laws supported by the Department for Business and Trade. It is expected that the measures in the Act and the secondary legislation will come into force in September 2024, to give employers time to prepare for the changes. Government-backed law will give all workers the legal right to request a predictable working pattern encouraging workers to begin conversations with their employers. 

 

The requests will be made in a similar way to flexible working but:  

  • Employers will only have one month to respond 
  • The request can only be rejected on certain statutory grounds – to be determined 
  • Similar rights will be introduced for Agency workers.  

 

Fixed-term employees with contracts of less than 12 months will have the right to request that their contract be made permanent or that it be extended to 12 months or more.  

 

The Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) Regulations 2023 

This amendment ensures that the law will continue to offer the same protection after the end of 2023, when these protections would otherwise have fallen away when rights, powers and liabilities derived from EU case law ceased to have effect at the end of 2023.  The rights in relation to pregnancy, maternity and breastfeeding, indirect discrimination, access to employment and occupation, equal pay and the definition of disability which were derived in EU case law will continue.  

 

Worker Protection (amendment of the Equality Act) Act 2023 

The new Worker Protection Act, which comes into effect in October 2024, creates a duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees in the workplace.  

 

This amendment to address harassment in the workplace will reintroduce rights that were repealed some years ago. The Act will extend employers’ duties to protect against sexual harassment and reintroduce protection (and businesses’ responsibility and therefore legal liability) for third-party harassment. 

 

It will create a statutory duty requiring an employer to prevent sexual harassment of employees and workers and make the employer liable for the harassment committed by third parties; e.g. customers, service users, clients and, in education, students. This third-party liability applies to all forms of unlawful harassment; for example, racial harassment, offensive conduct based on age, sex or disability, etc. 

 

Where sexual harassment occurs, as well as enforcement by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, an employment tribunal will be entitled to increase compensation in an individual harassment case by up to 25%. 

 

These are duties to prevent, which means having a policy won’t be enough. So, in addition to amending dignity at work policies, organisations must make clear what is unacceptable, enforce those standards and be able to demonstrate that action is taken to tackle these issues when they arise. 

 

Right to work checks – reminder and update 

We have been reminding our clients that Right to Work checks should be completed on all employees and a record kept of when you saw the original documentation. This includes employees with UK passports.  

 

The penalty for employing someone who is not permitted to work in the UK has increased threefold, as of Tuesday 13 February 2024, the overall maximum illegal working civil penalty has increased from £20,000 to £60,000. 

 

There is now a permanent system of digital right to work checks in place. If an employee does not hold a UK passport, they use this link to get a code, which they share with their employer along with their birth date, the employer then uses this link for the check. However, if you do need some support or have not used the digital service, SYLO are happy to support you with this small but vital part of your onboarding process. 

 

Finally… 

As a valued client, we would like to continue to keep you updated on key topics which we feel would be of interest to you and your business, for example employment-related developments and hot topics, details of our online training programmes and our quarterly Employment Law updates. 

Should you wish to opt-out of these, please just let us know. 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support and, should you wish to explore any of the topics highlighted in this bulletin, we would be happy to discuss them further with you. We will be contacting our Retained Clients to review their policies so they are in line with this new legislation.  

For any other queries, please contact your HR Lead or drop us a line at enquiries@sylobeyondhr.com.