Employment law changes

From 1st April 2024, several amendments to the regulations regarding holiday pay and annual leave came into effect. Some key modifications provide statutory certainty on issues that have plagued employers and employment lawyers alike:

• A 12.07% calculation method for determining holiday pay for workers with irregular work hours and people who do seasonal or part-year work. 
• The ability to pay rolled-up holiday pay to workers with irregular work hours, seasonal or part-year workers.
• A statutory entitlement for workers to carry over up to 28 days of unused holiday to the next holiday year in limited circumstances (including if they were unable to take them due to sickness or maternity absence).

These changes apply to organisations with leave years starting on or after 1st April 2024. If your leave year runs from January to December, the new regulations will apply from January 2025. 

Charities that engage workers on casual or term-time only contracts should take this opportunity to review how they calculate holiday pay. The new rules may make it easier to manage holiday pay for these types of workers, but care should be taken before making changes to terms and conditions of existing staff. 

From 6 April 2024, employees have a right to make a flexible working request from day one of their employment (previously statutory requests could be made only after 26 weeks’ service). As before, an application could include a request for part-time, term-time, flexitime, compressed hours, varied working locations and more. Employers need to respond to flexible working requests within two months (previously three) and are obliged to explain the reasons for their decision if they choose to deny a flexible working request, having regard to the limited statutory reasons for refusal. While previously employees were only entitled to one request per year, this has now been raised to two requests in any 12-month period. 

Charities need to be aware of these changes when dealing with flexible working requests and will also need to review and (if necessary) update Flexible Working Policies

From 6 April 2024, all employees with caring responsibilities are entitled to one week of unpaid leave in a 12-month rolling period. The leave can be used to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need.

A request for carer’s leave cannot be denied but it can be postponed, if the employer reasonably considers the operation of the business would be unduly disrupted by the employee’s absence.

Charities need to be aware of this new right and may also wish to update their policies to provide information to staff about carer’s leave. 

Employees who are pregnant, or who are returning from maternity, adoption or shared parental leave now have an extended period of protection in redundancy situations. Previously, employees who had notified their employer of their pregnancy, or who were on family leave, had an automatic right to be offered any suitable vacancies in a redundancy situation. This protection now applies for an extended period of 18 months. Employees taking at least six weeks of shared parental leave will also benefit from the 18-month additional protected period. 

Most charities will already be aware of the special protection afforded to employees who are pregnant or on maternity leave and whose roles are at risk of redundancy. In order to avoid discrimination claims, managers will need to be informed that the same protection now applies for an extended period. 

The election of the new Labour Government means that charities can prepare for wide-ranging reforms to employment law. Key proposed changes set out in Labour’s “Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People” include banning exploitative zero hours contracts, ending fire and rehire, introducing basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal. 

The Labour Manifesto also committed to rooting out gender, race and disability pay inequalities. Large employers would be required to report on disability and ethnicity pay gap. The Government plans to improve employment support for disabled people and access to reasonable adjustments. This is to be followed by increased protections from sexual harassment, maternity and menopause discrimination.

The Government plans to ensure that the minimum wage is a genuine living wage, accounting for the cost of living crisis. Removing age bands, as proposed, would entitle all adults to the same minimum wage. Details and specific dates of implementation of the proposals are yet to be seen.