Employment Law Advice for Employees & Workers

It can feel like the process is taking a long time. Redundancy is where a business has to let an employee go for economic reasons.

This could be for a number of reasons involving a business closing down or they need to reduce the workforce to reduce costs.

Your employer has to follow a correct process for it to be a fair redundancy. You have to be fairly selected, been provided with a consultation period and considered for suitable alternative roles that might exist. If your employer has breached any of these then you may have been unfairly dismissed.

If you have been employed for two years’ or more you will be entitled to statutory redundancy payments.

You are also entitled to your contractual notice period and you may be required to work this or receive it as a payment in lieu of notice.

If you have any questions, we are happy to help, contact us.

You have the right to submit a request for flexible working and for your employer to consider your request as long as you have been continuously employed for 26 weeks or more. You can only make one request per year.

You can ask to change your hours, times you work and changes to the place you work – for example, this could be working from home.

Your employer can refuse your request if it does not suit its business needs.

The legislation does not give you the automatic right to appeal the decision but it is recommended that your employer allows you to do so.

If you have any questions, we are happy to help, contact us.

The Equality Act 2010, protects people from discrimination when applying for a job, during your employment and after you have left employment.

There are nine specific areas of unlawful discrimination known as protected characteristics which are as follows:
age, disability, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, gender, gender reassignment and sexual orientation.

Discrimination can happen in a number of different ways including direct and indirect discrimination, victimisation and harassment.

Under the Equality Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against, harass or victimise someone because they have or are perceived to have a “protected characteristic” or associated with someone who has a protected characteristic.

Direct discrimination means treating someone less favourably than someone else because of a protected characteristic. An example could be not appointing someone due to their race or age.

Indirect discrimination means putting in place a rule or policy that has more impact on someone with a protected characteristic than someone without one and is unlawful when it cannot be objectively justified. An example could be insisting that an employee has to be a certain height or must not have beards.

If you have any questions, we are happy to help, contact us.

If you want to start a tribunal claim, you should start the ACAS early conciliation process first. This allows for an ACAS officer to contact the employer to see if a settlement or a resolution can be reached. If the employer choses not to liaise with ACAS, the next step will be to issue a claim form.

Depending on your claim will depend on time limits. Most claims have 3 months less 1 day from the complaint or dismissal.

Once the claim form has been issued, this will be sent to the employer and they will have to respond. At the same time of sending the claim form, the employment tribunal will send to the employee details of the next steps for the claim.

Dealing with a tribunal claim can take a long time, especially since Covid-19 as there is a backlog in claims.

If you think you have a claim, we are happy to help, contact us.