The period of incapacity from work that triggers the employer’s duty to make a report to the enforcing authority following an injury caused by an accident at work, increased on 6 April 2012.

Under Reg.3(2) of RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (SI 1995/3163)), employers are required to report an injury to the relevant enforcing authority where a worker is unable to do his or her normal work when the injury was caused by an accident at work. The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/199) made the following amendments to the employer’s reporting obligations:

• The period of incapacity before the employer is required to report an injury arising from an accident at work increases from more than three consecutive days to more than seven consecutive days.

• The period within which the employer is required to make the report increases from 10 to 15 days.

References:

RIDDOR – Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences (Amendment) Regulations 2012

A guide to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995

The date from which employers are required to auto-enrol eligible jobholders into a qualifying workplace pension scheme (known as the “staging date”) depends on the size of the employer’s PAYE scheme on 1 April 2012.

Changes to pension law mean that employers will be required to auto-enrol certain workers into a qualifying pension scheme and make contributions to the scheme on the workers’ behalf. The auto-enrolment rules will be phased in from 1 October 2012, beginning with the largest employers.

Employers will be required to register with the Pensions Regulator and will have a duty to provide certain information to their workers about the changes to workplace pensions and how they will be affected.

Workers will be able to opt out of the pension scheme once they have been automatically enrolled. Employers will have a duty to re-enrol those workers automatically every three years.

• The adult rate will increase by 11p to £6.19 an hour
• The rate for 18-20 year olds will remain at £4.98 an hour
• The rate for 16-17 year olds will remain at £3.68 an hour and
• The rate for apprentices will increase by 5p to £2.65 an hour.

I run a small business and have a pregnant employee who is due to go on Maternity leave but her performance is unsatisfactory and I might have to terminate her employment. If she is dismissed will I need to pay her Statutory Maternity Pay?

A: If an employee is made redundant, dismissed or she leaves your employment she is entitled to SMP if she leaves your employment after the start of the 15th week before the week her baby is due but before the start of the 11th week, SMP will start from the beginning of the 11th week before the week her baby is due.

If her employments ends at any time after the start of the 11th week before the week her baby is due and before the start of her Maternity Pay Period (MPP), her SMP will start from the day after she left your employment.

Her SMP must end when you have paid her SMP for 39 weeks. But it can end earlier than this if, after the baby is born, but before the end of the maternity pay period, she works for another employer. You will not pay her any more SMP and must stop paying SMP her from the week she started work. It is her responsibility to tell  you about her new job. She must do this as soon as possible, and make sure she returns any SMP payment she received that covers the week she started work and any part of the period after she resumed work.

 How much SMP you can recover depends on the total amount of employer’s and employees’ Class 1 NICs you pay in the ‘relevant tax year’.

The ‘relevant tax year is the tax year immediately before the tax year in which the qualifying week falls – this being the 15th week before the baby is due.

If your Class 1 NICs are no more than £45,000 in the relevant tax year, you can recover 103 per cent of your SMP payments. For 2011-12 this is made up of:

• 100 per cent of the SMP
• 3 per cent of the SMP – this is an additional amount as compensation for the employer’s Class 1 NICs you’ll have paid on the SMP

You can recover 103 per cent of the total of all payments of SMP made in the same tax month.

For answers to questions like this or any other employee related issues why not contact HR Management Support Ltd. for guidance and advice.

Return to Client questions

A: I would suggest producing an “Employment Starter Pack” which would include all the necessary documents to engage staff and meet the basic legislative requirements.

• Offer letter template with specific reference to the Immigration & Asylum Act requirements.
• Schedule Lists A & B to comply with the Immigration & Asylum Act
• A Written Statement of Particulars of Employment
• Disciplinary & Capability Policy & Procedure
• Grievance Policy & Procedure
• Holiday/Leave Policy & Procedure
• Sickness/Absence Policy & Procedure
• Sickness Self Certification Form.
• Equal Opportunities Policy (in line with Equality Act 2010)

You might also like to consider the following additional policies and procedures. These are not compulsory as they directly relate to statutory requirements but might help you and your staff understand the obligations and procedures should an issue arise:

• Maternity and Adoption rights and leave policy & procedure
• Paternity Leave policy and procedure
• Parental Leave policy and procedure
• Flexible Working request procedure

As an employer you must also have:

• A Health & Safety Policy
• Carried out a Health & Safety Risk Assessment
• Carried out a Fire Risk Assessment
• Employers Liability Insurance

HR Management Support Ltd. have the skills and expertise to draft all of the relevant contracts, policies and procedures to comply with current employment legislation requirements. They would be drafted as bespoke documents that clearly define the terms and conditions of employment defined by you and applicable to your specific business needs.

For answers to questions like this or any other employee related issues why not contact HR Management Support Ltd. for guidance and advice

Return to Client Questions

A: The Employment Rights Act 1996 prescribes that every employed person has the right to be provided with a Written Statement of Particulars of Employment not later than two months after the beginning of their employment. The written statement must include reference to the primary terms and conditions of that particular employment so should be bespoke and therefore unique to the company engaging the employee.

As the written statement references primary terms and conditions of employment there is not normally any provision written in to cover additional clauses such as Confidentiality and the protection of Intellectual Property (IP), however there is no reason why suitable clauses cannot be included in order to contractually bind an employee to the terms from the day they start their employment.

As a matter of course HR Management Support Ltd always advise their clients that some sort of confidentiality clause should be included even if it’s aim is only to protect marketing and sales information. However in a commercial organisation that involves research and product development HR Management Support have the necessary experience and can draft the clauses in order to protect from a design concept to the finished product.

There are four main types of Intellectual Property rights which you can use to protect your inventions or creations:

Patents

Patents protect what makes things work – like what makes a wheel turn or the chemical formula of your favourite fizzy drink.

Trade Marks

Trade Marks are signs (like words and logos) that distinguish goods and services in the marketplace.

Designs

Designs protect the appearance of a product/logo, from the shape of an aeroplane to a fashion item

Copyright

Copyright is an automatic right which applies when the work is fixed, that is written or recorded in some way.

Any or all of these can be included in suitably worded clauses within an employee’s contract of employment.

With regards to confidentiality it may be important that you do not make your idea or invention public before you apply to patent it, because this may mean that you cannot patent it, or it may make your patent invalid.

However, that does not mean that you must never discuss your idea or invention with anyone else. For example, you can discuss it with qualified (registered) lawyers, solicitors and patent attorneys because anything you say to or show them is legally privileged. This means it is in confidence and they will not tell anyone else.

Alternatively, you may need to discuss your invention with someone else before you apply for a patent – such as a patent adviser or consultant, or an inventor-support organisation. If so, a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) can help. NDAs are also known as confidentiality agreements and confidentiality-disclosure agreements (CDA).

No single NDA will work in every situation. This means that you must think carefully about what to include in your NDA.

Companies that work on projects related to Government or Military projects may also require their staff to be given security clearance and sign the official secrets act.

For answers to questions like this or any other employee related issues why not contact HR Management Support Ltd. for guidance and advice

Back to Client questions

As a company, we do allow our engineers to claim a certain amount of travelling time if they have to leave early to travel a long distance and the same if they are driving home. Unfortunately it is getting to the stage that some engineers are claiming travel time too frequently and I need it to control it.

What I propose to say to them is that they can only claim travel time if it is before 7am and after 5.30pm as this allows one hour either side of their contracted hours.

Please let me know your thoughts.

A: On the presumption that it is not unreasonable for an employee’s commuting time, to and from their normal place of work, to be around an hour,  it is quite a regular practice to exclude an hour on the outward and return journey when travelling on business away from the employees base, when that travel time is outside of their normal working hours.

This time is then recorded for the purposes of monitoring working hours under the Working Time Regulations. This is good business practice because if you needed to defend a claim following a health and safety incident or a road accident you would be able to provide appropriate employee records.

Payment for travel to and from a clients site is then down to each company to decide on its own policy. – If it is your normal policy to pay travelling time it would not be unreasonable to exclude the one hour “assumed commuting” time for each journey made outside normal working hours.

How is your policy worded? Do you need any help in drafting a revised policy to reflect the way you wish to cover payment for travelling time?

For answers to questions like this or any other employee related issues why not contact HR Management Support Ltd. for guidance and advice

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.