Employment Law Update 06/06/14

In this Employment Law update we will give you an overview of the changes to the flexible working regulations and the findings of the European Court of Justice in the case of British Gas-v-Lock 2014

Flexible Working

On the 30^th June the right to request flexible working will change.

Until the 30^th June the right to request flexible working only applies to parents of children under 17 or 18 in the case of parents of disabled children, or to those caring for an adult.

From the 30^th June any eligible employee can apply for flexible working for any reason.

  

Eligibility

All employees have a statutory right to request flexible working provided that:-

• They have worked for their employer for 26 continuous weeks 

• They have not made a request within the last 12 months. An employee can only make one statutory request in any 12 month period

Employees who have been employed for less than 26 weeks, agency workers and office holders do not have a statutory right to request flexible working.

Now is the time to review your company policy in respect of flexible working to ensure that it is up to date.  It might be however that you do not have a flexible working policy and now wish to implement one to ensure consistency in handling requests.

It should be noted that the current strict statutory procedures for dealing with flexible working requests will be dispensed with after the 30^th June and instead there will be a duty on employers to deal with requests in a ‘reasonable’ manner.  The current statutory framework is however a good place to start when drafting your company policies and procedures.

Holiday Pay

The European Court of Justice (ECJ), in the case of British Gas-v-Lock, has held that the Working Time Directive requires that worker’s statutory holiday should not be limited to basic salary where commission is part of remuneration. Therefore, if you have employees who earn commission which is directly linked to their work, then their holiday pay should be comparable to their normal pay so that they do not suffer a detriment i.e. a reduction in pay for taking holiday leave.

We would advise that that any holiday pay policy be reviewed to take account of this recent case to ensure that commission or other relevant variable payments are factored into holiday pay.

  

Should you want more information on the issues contained in this update,

 or any other employment issue, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our Employment Team on 01978 291000 - Wrexham, 01244 312166 - Chester, 01978 641222 - Llanrwst

We also hold a free Employment Law drop in service at our Wrexham office every Monday between 9.30am-12.30pm, and in our Chester office every Tuesday between 9.30am-12.30pm.

Melissa Bramwell of the Employment Team.