An engaged employee gives freely, they feel their jobs are worthwhile and the work inspires them to do their best.

Employee engagement can be seen as a combination of commitment to the organisation and its values and a personal willingness to contribute as part of a team. It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply motivation. Engagement is something the employee offers; it is not just what is defined in a job description or required as part of the employment contract.

Employee engagement is the product of the way people are managed, employee attitudes and business performance.

How does an employer benefit from an engaged workforce?

Employers benefit from engaged employees because they deliver improved business performance.

Engaged employees will help promote the business and protect the employer from the risks associated with poor service levels or product quality. This will help to develop a strong employer brand which in turn will help to attract and retain employees.

How do I recognise a work force that is not engaged?

In general a workforce that is not engaged will be evidenced by:

• High levels of short term absences
• Increased staff turnover
• Reduction in quality of products or service.
• Increased customer complaints
• Poor performance leading to discipline & grievance issues
• Higher costs and reduced profit

How do you build an engaged workforce?

A business consultant’s normal approach might be to recommend that you carry out an employee survey to measure employee attitudes but if you do not have a number of the key building blocks in place all a survey will identify will be a number of current issues that should be obvious to the management and are possibly the direct result of not already having those basic blocks in place.

Additionally, an employee attitude survey will either raise scepticism or an expectation that because a matter has been raised  it will be immediately addressed. Unfortunately, in reality, the problems are generally more deeply seated and, again as the basic building blocks are not in place, cannot be easily resolved, resulting in cynicism and an even less engaged work force.

HR Management Support approach to building an engaged workforce.

Firstly, do not refer to an employee engagement programme as the employee engagement will be the outcome of introducing business strategies which include performance management and development policies and the active support of line managers. The people management strategies and policies need to be aligned with those of the wider business. Employees need to understand how their work can contribute to the organisation’s strategic goals.

• Do employees know what is expected of them?
  • Is the job defined
  • Have SMART objectives been set
  • Are regular performance review meetings held
  • Is regular feedback provided
• Do employees have the skills and competencies necessary to carry out their jobs?
  • Are training needs identified
  • Are learning and development opportunities available
• Do employees have the opportunity to discuss and contribute to individual and team objectives
  • Are regular team and department briefings held
  • Are employees actively involved in the setting and measurement of performance targets
  • Are employees recognised for their individual or team contributions
• Are there clear and consistently applied policies and procedures in place?
  • Are all employees treated fairly and equally

For further advice and guidance on helping to achieve employee engagement of your workforce contact HR Management Support Ltd.

When will this affect me?

The new employer duties for auto enrolment will be introduced in stages over 4 years starting later this year. Each employer will be allocated a date from when the changes will first apply to them, known as the “staging date”. The first staging date will be in October 2012 and will continue through to 2017.

Your staging date will be based on the number of people that you have in your PAYE scheme and employers with the largest number of workers will have the earliest staging dates. The Pensions Regulator will contact you 6-12 months before your staging date but it would be prudent to start looking at the effects this will have on your business sooner rather than later.

• Employers with 250 or more staff are being staged in from 1 October 2012 to 1 February 2014 with the largest employers coming in first. Their staging timetable hasn’t changed.

• Employers with 50 to 249 members of staff will be staged in from 1 April 2014 to 1 April 2015.

• Employers with 30-49 staff will be staged in from 1 August 2015 to 1 October 2015.

• Employers with less than 30 members of staff will be staged in from 1 January 2016 to 1 April 2017.

To find out what your staging date is likely to be you can visit The Pensions Regulator website at:

www.tpr.gov.uk/staging

What employers will need to do to comply with the law

Employers will need to:

• Automatically enrol certain workers into a pension scheme
• Provide a qualifying scheme and inform all workers what type of scheme has been chosen
• Pay employer contributions for eligible jobholders into the scheme
• Tell all eligible jobholders that they have automatically been enrolled and that they have the right to opt out if they want to do so
• Provide workers with certain information about the changes and how they will affect them
• Inform workers that do not fall into the “eligible” category that they can opt in to the pensions scheme
• Register with The Pensions Regulator and give detail of your qualifying scheme and the number of people that you have automatically enrolled.

Employers must not:

• Encourage workers to opt out of the qualifying pension scheme
• Have recruitment practices that will benefit job applicants who indicate they are prepared to opt out
• Treat a worker unfairly or put them at a disadvantage because of automatic enrolment.

Which employees will I need to automatically enrol?

Workers who need to be automatically enrolled are called “eligible jobholders”.

An eligible jobholder is:

• Aged between 22 and state pension age
• Working, or ordinarily working in the UK
• Earning above a certain amount (currently proposed to be £7,475).

To identify if a person is earning above or below the lower earnings limit (£7,475) you will need to include earnings in salary, overtime, commission, bonuses, sick pay, maternity, paternity and adoption pay. This calculation will then give you the workers “qualifying earnings”.

It may be possible for employers to defer this assessment – by allowing a “waiting period” of up to 3 months. More guidance on waiting periods will be published by The Pensions Regulator shortly.

What pension characteristics will my scheme be required to have to meet the new legislation?

Employers with an auto enrolment duty will need to choose a pension scheme they can use for auto enrolment. You may use an existing scheme or set up a new one with a pension provider. In addition, there is the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST). NEST is a pension scheme with the following characteristics:

• It has a public service obligation, meaning it must accept all employers who apply
• It has been established by Government to ensure that employers can access pension saving and comply with their automatic enrolment duties.

Each pension scheme will have its own rules, but all employers will need to provide their scheme with information about the person who is being automatically enrolled. In addition your scheme must:

• Be able to auto-enrol jobholders within one month of their auto-enrolment date
• Meet minimum requirements that differ depending upon whether the scheme is a money purchase or final salary arrangement
• Not require the employee to make any choice about funds in order to be a member
• Not put any barrier on membership other than a three month waiting or postponement period after the employee first becomes eligible
• Have a legally binding obligation on the employer to make the necessary minimum contributions (many existing group personal pensions or stakeholder schemes do not have this in place).

If your current scheme does not meet this criterion then you may have to amend your existing scheme or select a new scheme that is compliant such as NEST.

Employers who already have a pension scheme can confirm that it is suitable for automatic enrolment by a process called “certification”. The Pension Scheme Regulator will contact you 6-12 months before your staging date to confirm your arrangements.

What should I do now to prepare?

• Review your current pension arrangements
• Identify if you have the expertise in house to manage the process or if you require the services of an HR Management Support consultant
• Identify any potential job holders, job roles or situations where auto-enrolment may not apply
• Contact your current pension provider to identify if the scheme is going to be auto-enrolment compliant and meet the new legislative criteria
• Identify budget implications and review the potential for using salary sacrifice to help fund the costs of auto-enrolment
• Identify when your staging date is likely to be.

More details relating to auto enrolment can be found on the Pension Regulator website www.tpr.gov.uk/staging

During the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games events will take place at venues in the Olympic Park, across London, and at the following out of London venues:

• Brands Hatch
• City of Coventry Stadium
• Eton Dorney
• Hadleigh Farm
• Hampden Park
• Lee Valley White Water Centre
• Millennium Stadium
• Old Trafford
• St James’ Park
• Weymouth and Portland

The Olympic Games start on 27 July 2012 and run until 12 August 2012.

The Paralympic Games begin on 29 August 2012 and close on 9 September 2012.

Some of your staff may already be asking you for time off because they have volunteered to help at the Olympic Games or want to attend as a spectator at the London 2012 Games.

The Games will rely on about 70,000 volunteers called “Games Makers”.  Games Makers will undertake a wide range of roles. Many of these may be behind the scenes or may require working anti-social hours. Some may have to work off-site in a warehouse distributing uniforms; others will be outside exposed to the elements for hours on end.

Games Makers will be required to commit to a minimum of 10 days at either the Olympic or the Paralympic Games, or for a minimum of 20 days if they want to volunteer at both.

For the Olympic officials coordinating the volunteers will be a complex operation, so volunteers will need to be as flexible as possible but once a roster has been allocated Games Makers will not be able to change their shifts.

Games Makers will be given their roster in April 2012, so employers can be given a couple of months’ holiday notice.

With around 6 months to go until the Olympics, it is recommended that,  to avoid any last-minute hurdles employers should be preparing for staff being away from work either as volunteer Games Makers or simply spectators at the numerous events.

Employers should start talking to employees now who are volunteering during the 2012 Games or have acquired tickets to go along to one or more of the events in order to manage expectations and minimise the impact on workplace productivity.

The key to avoiding potential misunderstanding or conflict is to have a clear policy in advance and communicate this to all staff – that way, everyone knows where they stand and you look after your business needs. Your policy need not be very complicated – a simple process of ‘first come, first served’ may be enough.

Employees have no legal right to take time off for volunteering. You can decide to give paid or unpaid time off or, if not, the employee may wish to take annual leave.

Annual Leave – the basics

When an employee starts work details of holidays and holiday pay entitlement should be found in the employee’s written contract, where there is one, or a written statement of employment particulars given to employees by their employer.

Most workers – whether part-time or full-time – are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave. Additional annual leave may be agreed as part of a worker’s contract. A week of leave should allow workers to be away from work for a week – i.e. it should be the same amount of time as the working week. If a worker does a five-day week, he or she is entitled to 28 days leave. If he or she does a three-day week, the pro rata entitlement is 16.8 days leave. Employees who work irregular work patterns accrue leave at a minimum rate of 12.07% of each hour worked.

Employers can set the times that workers take their leave, for example for a Christmas shutdown. If a worker’s employment ends, he or she has a right to be paid for the leave time due and not taken.

Public or Bank Holidays

There is no legal right to paid leave for public holidays; any rights to paid time off for these holidays depends on the terms of a worker’s contract. Paid public holidays can be counted as part of the statutory 5.6 weeks of holiday.

How much notice should be given when requesting leave?

Employers and employees can agree how and when to give notice of when leave is to be taken. But in the absence of any agreement the notice period should be at least twice the period of leave to be taken.

Can an employer refuse leave?

Restrictions on taking holidays may be stated in the contract of employment, implied from custom or practice, or incorporated into individual contracts from a collective agreement.

Employers may choose to:

• Shut down for certain periods where workers have to use their annual entitlement;
• Nominate particular dates as days of closure when workers are expected to take annual leave;
• Determine the maximum amounts of leave that can be taken on any one occasion and also the periods when leave may be taken;
• Determine the number of workers who can be off at any one time.

How do you calculate holiday pay for workers with no normal working hours?

If a worker has no normal working hours then a week’s pay is the average pay received over the preceding 12 weeks. Any weeks for which no pay was due should be replaced by the least previous week for which pay was due.

Contact HR Management Support if you need any further guidance on managing applications for time off from Games Makers during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The Government has confirmed that with effect from 6 April 2012 the qualifying period of service required for an employee to present a claim for unfair dismissal would be extended from 1 to 2 years.

This increase will provide employers with a greater opportunity to assess the suitability and performance of new employees and more flexibility in terminating their employment if they are deemed not to be meeting the required standards.

Currently, an employee can present a claim for ordinary unfair dismissal once they have 1 years’ continuous service.  However, there are certain exceptions to this when an employee with any length of service can present a claim for unfair dismissal.

For example:

• where the individual has been dismissed for making a protected disclosure (i.e. whistle blowing)
• in relation to trade union activities
• health and safety reasons
• pregnancy, maternity or other ‘Family Friendly’ rights.

It is expected that these exceptions will continue to apply and will no doubt become more important with the future increase in the qualification requirement.  There may also be an increase in allegations and claims relating to discrimination which also do not require any qualifying period.

Consolidating a number of previous acts the Employment Rights Act 1996 confirmed the qualifying period to be 2 years but at the time there was a legal challenge to the qualification period on the basis of indirect sex discrimination (R v Secretary of State Ex. P Seymour-Smith (2000) – a case which was based on a dismissal which took place in 1991.

Mrs Seymour-Smith claimed that the requirement for 2 years’ service to bring  a claim for unfair dismissal was indirectly discriminatory against women, and therefore incompatible with the Equal Treatment Directive, since less women were able to comply with the requirement (to have 2 years’ service) than men.

The House of Lords held that although the 2 year requirement did constitute indirect discrimination contrary to the Directive the Government had ‘objectively justified’ the requirement – to encourage recruitment by employers.

With effect from 1st June 1999 the 2  year qualifying period was reduced to the current 1 year requirement.  It remains to be seen whether another challenge to the 2 year requirement will be mounted once the increase takes effect in April and if so, whether the challenge would result in the same outcome as in the earlier Seymour-Smith case.

The increase to 2 years service to pursue a case of Unfair Dismissal will bring the position in line with the qualification requirement for a redundancy payment which, under the statutory scheme, requires an employee to have 2 years’ service.

Varying economic times dictate a company’s actions.  Financial uncertainty can lead to companies closing and laying off workers, while an economic upturn can encourage acquisitions and mergers. No matter what the economic climate a company needs to follow a structured plan to ensure a smooth process as they go through major corporate transactions and restructurings.

From mergers, acquisitions, reduced demand for products or services, changes in technology and plant closures careful handling of restructuring and redundancy is essential to minimise the risks and comply with employment legislation and employee relations issues.

Companies engaged in a restructure involving redundancy or redeployment often face a difficult period in terms of managing employee relations, costs, risk and productivity. These factors may also be balanced with the desire of the management to do the right thing by their staff. An objective assessment approach enables a company to provide a fair and defensible process, and allows it to see where their talent lies to help the business move forward following a restructure.

The use of clear and structured assessment criteria in redundancy or redeployment processes greatly benefits the business by:

• By providing a fair and defensible selection process employees are less likely to appeal against final decisions
• Allowing the company to identify talented individuals and effectively match skills in the population to future requirements
• Providing development opportunities through feedback, to both retained employees and those leaving the company

The following steps help to ensure a fair and defensible assessment process, which in turn facilitate positive outcomes for the business and the individuals involved.

1 – Have Clear Objectives

At the start of any project it is imperative that the organisation and key stakeholders are all clear about the objectives of the process. Without clarification of the goal, it is hard to ensure a process will be designed and delivered that will meet the success criteria. Whoever first identifies the need for redeployment/redundancy must have a rationale in mind and it is important that this is explored, understood and accepted by those involved in the roll out of the process.

• What are the success criteria?
• What are the proposed outcomes and business factors determining the change?
• Are you looking to assess against current role performance or future requirements?
• Who are the population likely to be impacted?
• Will volunteers from outside the affected population be accepted?
• What is the proposed approach to support objective decision makers (Assessment Centre, psychometrics, interviews etc)?
• Who are the key decision makers and stakeholders to engage with?
• Ensure HR representatives are present at all briefings to advise and guide managers, manage questions and feedback key issues raised to the decision makers.

2 – Communicate with Employee Representatives and Unions

As a first step in the redundancy or redeployment process, a procedure should be put in place and communicated internally to employees and their representatives. This benefits all parties by helping to ensure fair treatment. By openly sharing information, the process is more likely to be understood and will demonstrate the company’s continued concern for their employees.

• Communicate the policy, process and any updates to employee representatives and/or trade unions as soon as possible.
• Sharing and agreeing points with  employee representatives and/or trade unions allows all parties the opportunity to influence the policy before any changes are made, therefore helping to reduce the likelihood of appeals at the end of the process.
• Provide details about the retraining, transfer and redeployment opportunities available.
• Consider and design a redundancy appeals procedure to deal with complaints from employees who feel that the selection/assessment procedure has been unfairly applied to them. This could be achieved by setting up a committee of management and employee representatives to consider individual grievances and any subsequent remedies.

3 – Communicate the Process

People are naturally concerned and apprehensive about the unknown, so clear communications can help to ensure clarity and a thorough understanding of upcoming events. Ongoing communication and support can help to put people at ease during a redundancy or redeployment process. It is also advisable to provide information to employees on what to expect and what the process will involve.

• Try to minimise uncertainty: announce plans to all involved hierarchically and simultaneously according to job level and provide an initial briefing document to respond to any immediate queries.
• Advise in writing all employees who are “At Risk” and those who are not involved in the process.
• Explain to staff the decision making. This can be done through either a briefing document or face to face group briefings
• It is helpful to have a full briefing immediately prior to the first assessment interviews being undertaken. Here, you can introduce the employees to the personnel that are involved and make sure they are clear about what the assessment will be like.
• Gaining the buy-in of the senior operational manager who fully understands what is involved emphasises the business support towards the process.

4 – Understand what to Assess

An important element in designing a successful process is ensuring that the criteria for selection are directly relevant to the roles being reviewed. In order to do this, some form of job analysis should be conducted. This involves talking to, and possibly observing, people currently in the affected roles to identify the behaviours demonstrated (which will be assessed), the types of tasks completed (which will inform the choice or design of exercises) and the level of behaviours required for success (which will become the benchmark for identifying effective employees).

• Whilst it is ideal to speak with individuals already in role, during a redundancy or redeployment process these individuals are likely to be going through the process themselves.
• If new jobs are being created, or if roles are changing, observing people in current roles may not be appropriate. Even if this is the case, it is still important for some kind of job analysis to occur, as if a participant appeals their Assessment interview outcome, evidence would be needed to show why specific behaviours and benchmarks were chosen.

• In these situations, job analysis could be conducted with:
  • Directors or those leading the restructure to understand the drivers of change
  • Senior managers who can project what behaviours they anticipate being required in any new or changed roles
  • Customers who can outline what their current needs are, or how these might change in the future
• Draw up a matrix of all required skills and behaviours and rate them on priority and importance.

5 – Manage Special Requirements

When designing the assessment process, it is important to consider how individuals who may have special requirements can access the assessment process. There are many types of special requirements to consider, with some of the most common ones being those with physical disabilities, learning difficulties or visual impairment.

When people are selected to go through the assessment process, whether through nomination or voluntary application, it is important to directly contact anyone who states a ‘special requirement’ to explore their specific requirements.

• Discuss what adaptations they currently have in the workplace, explain the types of assessments they will be completing and agree how you could adapt the activities for them
• Don’t make assumptions about their requirements, but communicate openly around any adaptations necessary

6 – Assessment Criteria

When using  assessment criteria  as part of a redundancy process, it is vital for objectivity and legal defensibility reasons, that the tools and measures used provide consistency and a balance of themes, creating a ‘level playing field’ for all participants, irrespective of their specific prior experiences or knowledge. Tools for selection can include psychometric tests, questionnaires, application forms, structured interviews and business simulation exercises.

• By understanding the role requirements and what good performance looks like, you will be able to identify the key six to eight competencies essential for the role or job level, and which tools will provide a good measure of these.
• Assessment simulation exercises have great validity as they can be designed to replicate the kinds of tasks the employee completes in their daily work. They provide objective behavioural evidence of current capability, which serves as an indication of future performance.
• Consider time, resources and budget, as these will all influence your choice of tools. Assessing for redundancy purposes warrants significant investment because of the potential cost of getting it wrong.
• Once you have selected your assessment tools, if appropriate, you should try them out. This confirms whether they are pitched at the right level for your specific purpose and will enable you to create a benchmark.

7 – Maintain Objectivity and Fairness

A key reason for using pre-defined assessment criteria are that they are one of the fairest and most objective selection tools available, meaning they can help ensure your assessment for redundancy or redeployment process is legally defensible.

• All participants must receive the same experience, the same communications and be treated equally when scoring.
• Any exercises should be delivered and marked by trained internal or external assessors who are able to objectively assess performance on the different activities.
• Scoring rules should be applied in the same way to all participants. Your scoring rules should be determined in advance to ensure that decisions are not made after seeing individual participant scores. This is an important part of the process, as ultimately this is what the decisions regarding redundancy or redeployment are based on.
• Process should be overseen by an independent manager, who is both an experienced assessor and able to coach the assessing team and benchmark their write-ups.

8 – Provide Feedback to Participants

All participants should be given some feedback on their own performance, at least results provided in a written report. This is then something they can use as the basis for development in a new role or as part of their reflection when applying (internally or externally) for other positions.

• Giving feedback is often overlooked, but it shows the organisation’s commitment to transparency and to supporting individuals by providing clear and objective feedback around strengths and development areas, both for those leaving the organisation and those retained in new roles.
• Bearing in mind the emotional drain of this type of process on all involved, individuals will want to know as quickly as possible what their outcome is, and then at a more leisurely pace digest their feedback and review the impact.
• Participants should know in advance the timescale for feedback, who will deliver it and how it will be delivered.
• We recommend that each individual is informed of the outcome (e.g. stay in role, be redeployed, or made redundant) separately to receiving their assessment interview feedback.

Other Considerations

These steps are key to a successful and well run assessment process, however there are likely to be other things to think about in the design and implementation of an assessment for redundancy or redeployment process:

• Put mechanisms in place to support and encourage participants on the day of their assessment interview to reduce anxiety for those taking part.
• As well as those leaving the organisation, support the survivors, as ensuring positive engagement with retained employees impacts post-change performance.

At HR Management Support we have many years of experience of successfully managing restructuring and redundancy programmes. Careful handling of restructuring and redundancy is essential to minimise the risks and comply with employment legislation and employee relations issues so, for professional advice and guidance and help with managing your project please contact us first.

Bank and public holidays in England and Wales

There are different bank and public holidays in different parts of the UK. There are currently six permanent bank holidays in England and Wales and an additional one in 2012. Christmas Day and Good Friday are public holidays.

The expected bank and public holidays for England and Wales are listed in the table above.

Substitute days

When the usual date of a bank or public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, a ‘substitute day’ is given, normally the following Monday. For example in 2011, Christams Day was on Sunday, 25 December, so there was a substitute bank holiday on Tuesday, 27 December.

Time off for employees

Employees  do not have an automatic right to paid leave on bank and public holidays, though many people receive the day off work. Any right to time off or extra pay for working on a bank holiday depends on the terms of the employee’s contract of employment.

What is parental leave?

Parental leave offers qualifying parents the right to take up to 13 weeks unpaid time off work to look after a child or make arrangements for their welfare.

Parental leave should only be taken to care for the welfare of a child, for example an employee may wish to take leave to:

• Stay with a child who is in hospital
• To spend more time with a child
• To make school / childcare arrangements and to help them settle in.

Who qualifies for Parental Leave?

If an employee has completed one year’s service with an employer, they are entitled to 13 weeks unpaid parental leave for each child born or adopted. The leave can start once the child is born or placed for adoption, or as soon as the employee has completed a year’s service, whichever is later.

The employee must either be the parent:

• named on the child’s birth certificate
• named on the child’s adoption certificate
• with legal parental responsibility for a child under five (under 18 if the child is disabled)

If the parents are separated and the employee does not live with their children, the employee has the right to parental leave if he/she keeps formal parental responsibility for the children.

Foster parents do not have rights to parental leave but may be able to request a flexible working pattern.

Employers can ask for evidence that the employee is entitled to parental leave. This could be:

• the child’s birth certificate
• papers confirming the child’s adoption or the date of placement in adoption cases
• the award of disability living allowance for the child

Employees can take the Parental Leave at any time up to the child’s fifth birthday (or until five years after placement in the case of adoption).

If the child has disabilities, the employee can take 18 weeks up to the child’s 18th birthday.

How is Parental Leave requested?

A request should be made to the employer giving 21 days notice of the start date of the parental leave, the employer may ask for this to be in writing.

As long as the employee qualifies for parental leave and gives the employer the correct notice the employee should be able to take parental leave at any time.

To take parental leave straight after the birth or adoption of a child, an employee should give notice 21 days before the beginning of the expected week of childbirth or placement. In cases where this may not be possible the employee should give notice to the employer as soon as possible. For example, if a child is born prematurely or where less than 21 days notice is given that a child is to be placed with you for adoption.

An employee will remain employed while on parental leave and terms of their contract of employment, such as contractual notice and redundancy terms, still apply.

At the end of parental leave the employee has the right to return to the same job as before or, if that is not practicable, a similar job with the same or better status and terms and conditions.  If leave is taken for a period of four weeks or less, the employee is entitled to go back to the same job.

Can the employer postpone parental leave?

An employer can only postpone parental leave if they have a good business reason for doing so. For example seasonal production, another member of staff is off or the staff absence would harm the business.

Parental leave can be postponed for up to 6 months but can not be postponed so that the leave ends after the child’s fifth birthday (or 18 in the case of adopted or disabled children).

How long can an employee take off in a year?

The default arrangement does not allow anyone to take off more than 4 weeks in any year. However, if the employer agrees to more parental leave being taken then it may be possible.

Is parental leave paid or unpaid?

Statutory parental leave is unpaid, but an employer can offer other arrangements as part of the terms and conditions of employment.

See other articles related to Parental leave: Flexible Working

The Government today (28th November 2011) announced  that automatic enrolment will begin, as planned, in the autumn of 2012 and all employers will remain in scope. However, small businesses, (i.e. those with less than 50 employees), will be given additional time to prepare for the implementation of automatic enrolment. The timetable will be adjusted so that no small employers are affected by the reforms during this current term of Parliament.

The rate of pensions contributions will remain unchanged until all businesses have started automatic enrolment. The Government considers that his measure will benefit all employers.

Under the revised timeline, small business would begin automatically enrolling their staff in May 2015, instead of the current timing of April 2014.

See the full report

He has been provided with  (Draft) Terms of Reference under which he will  conduct his review, and develop his recommended revised procedural code, with a view to ensuring that robust case management powers can be applied flexibly, effectively and (insofar as is practicable) consistently in individual cases.  The overriding objective of the system remains as set out in Regulation 3 of the 2004 Constitution & Rules Order (i.e. enabling tribunals and chairmen to deal with cases justly), in particular, the revised procedural rules for employment tribunals should, insofar as practicable, ensure that:

a) cases can be managed in a way that is proportionate to the nature of the issues involved, with the importance of saving expense considered throughout.

b) proceedings can be handled quickly and efficiently, with an emphasis on helping proceedings to resolve themselves otherwise than through judicial determination at hearings, and dealing robustly and, so far as appropriate, consistently with cases where they appear to have little or no reasonable prospect of success, with a view to fairness for all parties and the tribunal and its resources; Consideration should also be given to the efficiency in the listing of cases for hearing.

c) rules are both simple and simply expressed, in particular given the significant proportion of unrepresented parties using employment tribunals;

d) proceedings have as much certainty as the nature of particular cases allows, and that in particular like cases are treated alike (with as much use made of standardised orders and directions as possible, building on the good work already developed around Case Management Discussion agendas), and the rules are exercised, and orders are made, in a manner that is consistent, so far as appropriate, across Great Britain (backed, where necessary and appropriate by relevant and published practice directions)

In conducting the Review,  Mr Justice Underhill will be required to have specific regard for the cost-effectiveness and proportionality of the system, both insofar as taxpayers are concerned, and the parties themselves.

Following his review of Employment Tribunal Rules, Mr Justice Underhill is expected to recommend a revised procedural code for employment tribunals by the end of April 2012.