We round up the latest employment news.
National standard for workplace menopause support published
A new standard to help employers manage menopause and menstrual health has been published by the British Standards Institute.
The national technical standards body has produced the menstruation, menstrual health, and menopause in the workplace standard (BS30416) with input from major employers, including Morrisons and BT, as well as unions, health and safety bodies and charities. It gives examples of best practice and provides recommendations for workplace policies, work design, workplace culture and the physical environment.
New laws protecting parents and carers receive Royal Assent
Parents and carers will soon benefit from the following new protections:
- Up to 12 weeks of paid neonatal care leave for employed parents whose children need to go into hospital. This will give them more time to spend with their baby at a hugely stressful time. The new right will be in addition to other leave and pay entitlements they may have such as maternity and paternity.
- Redundancy protection for pregnant women and new parents. The existing redundancy protections will be extended to cover pregnancy and for parents who return to work.
- A new entitlement for unpaid carers to a week of flexible unpaid leave each year so they can care for a dependant with a long-term care need. This will give carers a bit more time to balance their caring and work responsibilities, supporting them to remain in employment.
The government will have to introduce secondary legislation to bring these new laws into force. We’ll keep you informed about its progress on this.
ICO publishes new guidance to help employers deal with subject access requests
The Information Commissioner’s Office has published new guidance to help employers respond to subject access requests. It answers a series of questions and provides examples to help organisations understand what they need to do to comply with the law.
HSE warns employers to help workers exposed to the hot weather
Following the UK Health Security Agency and the Met Office’s recent yellow heat-health alert, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has prompted employers to take action in protecting their employees working both inside and outside in extreme heat.
There is no legal maximum temperature for workplaces but heat is considered as a hazard. The HSE are highlighting that everyone is at risk and employers should discuss changes with their workers to manage this. The HSE has put together a few measures employers can put in place, including methods of reducing exposure to workplace heat, offering flexible working patterns, providing access to drinking water and weather appropriate protective equipment, and sharing information about the symptoms of heat stress.
You can read our guidance here.
25% increase in numbers of Employment Tribunal claims
The Ministry of Justice has published quarterly statistics from the period January to March 2023. These reveal that 22,825 claims were received in that period, an increase of almost 25% compared with the same period last year.
Survey reveals delay in implementing adjustments for disabled workers
The Great British Workplace Adjustments Survey 2023, conducted by the Business Disability Forum, revealed that disabled employees are waiting far too long for reasonable adjustments.
Almost 1,500 disabled employees and managers responded to the survey which found that:
- 78% of disabled employees had to initiate the process of getting adjustments.
- 56% said there are still disability related barriers in the workplace, even after adjustments had been made, and only 18% said that their adjustments had removed all barriers.
- 10% said it was easy to get the adjustments they needed.
- 1-in-8 people are waiting over a year to get the adjustments they need.
Disabled workers also complained about wider barriers in their workplace environment and working culture, such as bullying and harassment, micro-aggressions, inaccessible shared spaces and transport to work.
It also asked managers about their experience of dealing with disabled members of staff. Only 25% of managers said that occupational health had helped support the employee to manage their disability and understand the adjustments that would help. They also complained about the difficulty of finding out where to access information about adjustments. Processes were often convoluted and were rarely brought together behind one internal centralised system. They also said that they didn’t have authority to make adjustments to the culture and wider working environment.
Sharp fall in salary transparency in job ads
The proportion of UK job ads that include salary information has slipped to a seven-year low according to a report analysed by Personnel Today. Job search engine Adzuna analysed 80 million UK job ads posted between 2016 and April 2023.
Despite Adzuna data showing that job ads with a salary receive six times more applications, just 51.5% of UK job ads disclosed an intended salary or salary range in April 2023. That is significantly lower than 61.4% a year ago. The report also highlights the sectors which have the highest and lowest disclosure rates.
The lack of transparency around starting salaries is cited as one of the reasons why many organisations aren’t making enough progress to reduce their gender pay gaps.
CIPD Good Work Index 2023: workers less fulfilled and more stressed
Job quality has gone backwards in the past four years, according to the latest research from the CIPD on workers’ engagement and stress levels. Its 2023 Index estimates that between 6 million and 9 million people could be experiencing “poor quality” work, and compared to 2019, employees are less enthused about work, less likely to perceive their job as useful, and more likely to see their work as “doing it for the money”.
Other key findings include:
- 43% of workers said their work was purely transactional (compared to 36% in 2019).
- 51% were happy to put work additional hours in 2023 (compared to 57% in 2019).
- 49% always or often feel less enthusiastic about the job (compared to 54% in 2019).
- 33% sometimes feel bored at work.
- 26% sometimes feel miserable.
- 21% sometimes feel lonely.
Employees in the public sector are more likely to feel disengaged with their work than those working in the private sector.
UK and Switzerland recognise professional qualifications in aim to boost UK service exports
The Department for Business and Trade has announced a new deal signed between the UK and Switzerland recognising professional qualifications in both countries. Under the agreement, UK-qualified professionals in regulated sectors, such as law and architecture, who wish to have their qualifications recognised in Switzerland will have a transparent system to do so, and vice versa.
Read more - June 2023
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