 |
|
|
HUMAN RESOURCES NEWS BULLETINS
Employment Update
Whilst you are probably well aware of the current changes, we thought we would remind you about them as follows:
Calculation of a week's pay
This is used in Employment Tribunal awards and for Redundancy payments: £310 (gross) from 1 February 2007
The Work and Families Act - 1 April 2007
-
Increasing maternity and adoption pay from 6 - 9 months
-
The removal of the qualifying period required for the entitlement to Additional Maternity Leave. Therefore the qualifying period will cease and all employees will be entitled to a full 12 months leave , although this is still broken down into Ordinary and Additional Maternity Leave of 26 weeks each
-
Statutory Maternity Pay is paid for 39 weeks
-
Statutory Maternity Pay increases to £112.75
-
With this increase it means that employers will be obliged to pay pension contributions throughout the additional 13 weeks based on the employee's full pay (not the SMP rate) and it is arguable at this stage that other benefits such as private health insurance and PHI might still apply
-
The small employer's exemption will be removed. Therefore, if you have 5 or less employees you will no longer be exempt from automatic unfair dismissal in the event that you do not allow an employee to return to the same or similar job after Additional Maternity Leave or Additional Adoption Leave
-
Women wishing to return from maternity leave must give you 8 weeks notice
-
'Keeping in Touch' days have been introduced
-
Increasing the right to request flexible working to carers of adults - this will apply where the person is living with the employee, married or is the civil partner of the employee or a relative (or near relative) of the employee . The all important reference is to near relative which can be defined as including parents, parents-in-law, guardians, adult children (including step-children), adopted adult children, siblings (including those who are in-laws), uncles, aunts or grandparents and step-relatives.
-
Whilst not confirmed yet, it is anticipated that fathers will have the option to transfer their female partner's unused maternity leave to them to take as Statutory Paternity Leave if the mother returns to work after six months and then the father will have the right to take up to six months Paternity Leave at the same rate as SMP.
Other
-
Smoking ban effective 1 July 2007
-
Proposals to extend SMP, MA and SAP to 52 weeks
-
Proposals to increase the Statutory holiday entitlement to 20 days plus the current 8 Public and Bank Holidays. Changes to the holiday entitlement will be from 1 October 2007 increasing to 24 rising by increments to 28 by October 2009
-
National Minimum Wage increases to:
Adult rate (workers aged 22 and over) to £5.52
Development rate (for 18-21 year olds) to £4.60
Development rate (for 16-17 year olds) to £3.40
For an informal chat about any of these changes or any other people management issues you may have, just call Carol
Published: April 2007
© www.hrsolutions-uk.com
|
|