2024 Legal Bulletin - Employment Law Changes from April

1.   Holiday Pay Calculations for Part Time/Irregular Hours Workers

There are some significant changes to be aware of here, so bear with us, as there is a lot to take on board!

An irregular hours worker works “wholly or mostly variable” paid hours under the terms of their contract, meaning they have to work a different number of hours each week. These workers could have a casual, or zero-hours, contract.

A part-year worker is required to work only part of the year and there are periods in that year of at least a week during which they are not required to work and for which they are not paid – for example on a term time contract or a seasonal worker. The guidance also states that part-year workers may have fixed hours.

As all workers have a right to receive normal pay for 20 days holiday, you need to consider what is included within normal pay, and this may well cause some challenges – particularly around bonus or commission arrangements.

Under the changes, four weeks of the minimum 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday entitlement must be paid at a worker’s normal rate of pay, and the guidance says that the normal rate of pay must include “payments, including commission payments, intrinsically linked to the performance of tasks that a worker is contractually obliged to carry out” So please make sure you are calculating all workers holiday pay correctly. When working out your employees’ holiday pay, if they are entitled to overtime or bonus payments, then these payments need to be included when working out their average pay over a 52 week average.

For leave years beginning 1 April 2024, employers will be able to cover a worker’s holiday pay through including an additional amount in their payslips, instead of paying holiday pay when they take annual leave. 

Rolled-up holiday pay was originally ruled as unlawful by the European Court of Justice because of concerns that workers might be de-incentivised from taking annual leave, so this is a total U-Turn on the previous legislation!

If you decide to operate a rolled up holiday pay, then there are a number of things you need to do that will add to your workload, such as;

ü Changing your contracts to make it very clear whether a worker falls into the irregular hours/part-year worker category.

ü The most difficult factor could be how you monitor that the worker is still taking the required time off as you have a duty of care to ensure this under the new regulations.

ü If you have an HR software system such as Breathe HR, then this will mean you are meeting the requirement of recording part time workers/irregular workers holidays, but still need to make sure they are taking the holiday!

2.   Right to Work Checks

All UK employers are required to check the right to work of their employees and take steps to prevent illegal working, and there are civil penalties to cover the situation where a UK employer unknowingly employs an individual who does not have the required permission to perform the job they are doing.

The Home Office announced that as of the 13 February 2024, the overall maximum civil penalty for employing an illegal worker will increase as noted below, so this would be a very expensive mistake to make!

v £15,000 to £45,000 per worker for a first offence

v £20,000 to £60,000 per worker for repeat violations

So please make sure you have the correct documentation on file for all of your employees – including UK nationals.

For any workers who are non-UK Nationals, you can use the online right to work checking service; https://www.gov.uk/view-right-to-work

3.   Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023

Pregnant employees or those returning from maternity, adoption, or shared parental leave will be protected from redundancy.

It will be your duty as an employer to offer these employees a suitable alternative vacancy in the 18 months after birth or adoption. The existing right to be offered a vacancy while on any form of family leave will be extended. Failure to comply with these regulations will be considered unfair dismissal and discrimination.

This shouldn’t impact any of your policies but will be an important consideration to make if you are considering redundancies or a restructure in your business, therefore please ensure you take professional HR advice if you find yourself in this position.

4.   The Carer’s Leave Act 2023.

This states that employees with carer responsibilities will be granted a legal right to take up to 5 days of unpaid leave off each year to fulfil their responsibilities. These days will be unpaid and can be taken as full or half days. So, you will need to have a Carers Leave Policy in place to ensure you are legally compliant.

5.   Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023

There’s been a lot of news about this, so I’m sure you will have heard of this change, as Employees gain the right to request flexible working from day one, rather than after 26 weeks of employment, with an increased limit to make two Flexible Working requests per year. You need to make sure that your Flexible Working Policy is updated to reflect these changes.

6.   The Paternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Employees will be able to take the two weeks of statutory paternity leave at any point in the first year of having their child. Previously it was only allowed to be taken within the first 8 weeks of the child being born.  

The employee will also be able to split it up into two separate blocks of one week, again previously this had to be taken as a consecutive two-week period.

You will need to ensure that your Paternity Leave Policy is updated to reflect these changes.

There are some more changes due later this year too.

There are also some more changes due to come into play by the end of the year, which we will update you on later in the year.

Thank you to Emma Browning from Meraki Hr for supporting Appointments Personnel with this employment bulletin.

If you need help implementing any of the employment law changes for 2024 you can reach out to Emma Browning at help@merakihr.com and quote Appointments Personnel in your email.