As part of keeping you in our focus, our ‘legal lightbulb’ update ensures you’re on top of the latest changes in legislation, case law, and people trends.
Covid concerns and refusing to attend work
For an employee’s refusal to attend work to be considered reasonable their covid concerns must be directly related to the workplace – a tribunal held that it was fair to dismiss an employee who had ‘general concerns’ as their refusal to attend was not specific to any serious and imminent danger posed at work.
Ban on exclusivity clauses to be extended
Exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts were banned in 2015 – the clauses stopped workers from taking on additional work with other employers. The government will now extend the ban to contracts where a worker’s guaranteed weekly income is £123 or less with legislation “later this year”.
Progressive parental leave policy
Tate and Lyle PLC are rolling out a new ‘Equal Parental Leave Policy’ providing all employees with a minimum of 16 weeks’ full-paid parental leave. The policy aims to provide more flexibility and family-friendly ways of working by applying to birth, adoption, fostering, and surrogacy regardless of gender, marital status, sexual orientation or whether the employee is the birthing or non-birthing parent.
Awards for injury to feelings increased
The bands of awards (known as Vento bands) for injury to feelings have increased for cases presented on or after 06 April 2022. The new band ranges are:
- Lower band – £990 to £9,900 (less serious cases)
- Middle band – £9,900 to £29,600 (cases that don’t merit an upper band award)
- Upper band – £29,600 to £49,300 (most serious cases)
- Amounts over £49,300 can be awarded in the most exceptional cases
People diary dates
- June 01-29 – Pride Month
- June 14-19 – Nutrition and Hydration Week
- June 27-01 July – World Wellbeing Week
