UK: regulations have been made to bring the Carer’s Leave Act into force

Regulations have been made bringing the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 into force on 4 December 2023. The Act adds new provisions to the Employment Rights Act 1996 to give employees a day one right to one week’s unpaid leave (pro-rated) each year to provide or arrange care for a dependent with a long-term care need. … Read more

UK: round-up of progress on employment legislation reforms

The last few months since our August round-up have seen considerable progress on a number of employment law reform initiatives, largely through enactment of Private Members’ Bills supported by the Government in place of any Employment Bill (which again was absent from the recent King’s Speech).  Employers will need to reflect many of these in … Read more

UK: Government announces reforms to working time rules on holiday and TUPE

The Government has this week published its response to recent consultations (see here) on proposed changes to the Working Time Regulations (WTR) and TUPE.  It aims to take advantage of Brexit to remove some administrative complexity for employers while also codifying certain worker rights established through ECJ caselaw (which could otherwise be reversed following 1 … Read more

Asia Employment, Pensions and Incentives Update: October 2023

This month’s update covers the following: We look at a recent Singapore case where an employer was found liable for wrongful termination, but was entitled to recover relocation benefits paid to an employee who failed to relocate. Click here to read a summary of the case. Over in Mainland China, the local authorities in Shanghai … Read more

Balancing Acts – The Future of Work Report 2023

New challenges, new norms  Our last Future of Work report was written during a period of upheaval, with the Covid-19 pandemic necessitating new ways of working and social movements – including Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, #StopAsianHate and growing climate activism – changing expectations of internal and external stakeholders. Now the pandemic has abated but new … Read more

UK: changes to harassment law enacted; Acas draft statutory Code on Predictable Work Requests published

HR teams face a busy year updating policies, procedures and staff training to reflect legislative changes expected to come into force next year.  Several Private Members’ Bills have been enacted in recent months (including on carer’s leave, flexible work requests, predictable work requests and extended redundancy protection for pregnancy/family leave returners);  yesterday it was the … Read more

UK: Diversity and inclusion in the financial sector – driving change

In the next step in its drive to boost diversity and inclusion (D&I) in regulated firms, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published Consultation Paper 23/20 at the end of September setting out its proposals on new regulatory framework in respect of D&I in the financial sector (FCA CP). At the same time, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published its … Read more

UK: tribunal rules that ‘anti-woke’ views amounted to a protected belief

A recent tribunal decision has held that an employee’s beliefs about the best way to eliminate racism (that critical race theory, described by him as the ‘woke’ approach to racism, is misconceived and divisive, and that the cause of racial equality is best advanced not through separatism and segregation but by valuing people based on … Read more