The Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 have brought about key changes to employment rights which were brought into force on 1 January 2024, however they will not effect most practices until later in the year.
These changes have been outlined below along with key information:
Holiday pay and calculation
Further to the prominent case rulings in Harpur Trust v Brazel, changes have been made with the intention of clarifying and streamlining the approach to holiday for irregular hours and part time workers. These will effect holiday leave years which begin on or after the 1 April 2024. It also wraps up outstanding provisions from the COVID-19 pandemic, as follows:
- The (re)introduction of rolled-up holiday pay as an option for irregular hours and part year workers only
- Permit the calculation of accrued holiday entitlement at 12.07% of hours worked in a pay period for irregular hours and part-year workers in the first year of employment and beyond
- Introduce a method for calculating accrued annual leave for when irregular hours and part year workers are on other leave such as family leave or sickness absence.
- Revoke COVID-19 provisions so that workers can no longer carry over accrued leave from the pandemic and have up until the 31 March 2024 to use the leave.
Working time records
Employers have been required to keep records for two years for each of their workers which adequately show their hours of work have been kept within the working time limits (such as the 48 hour weekly limit), to protect the health and safety of their staff. Whilst individuals cannot claim against their employer for a failure to do so, the Health and Safety Executive is able to bring proceedings against employers.
The new legislation effective this month, inserts into the Working Time Regulations the caveat that: ‘An employer need not record each worker’s daily working hours in order to comply with paragraph (1) if the employer is able to demonstrate compliance without doing so.’
Whilst this does not remove a requirement to keep suitable records that demonstrate the working time limits have been complied with, it does perhaps make the requirement less onerous.
TUPE
The new legislation which came into force this month but will apply to transfers which take place on or after 1 July 2024. It brings reforms to the consultation obligations, with the intention to ‘remove unnecessary and outdated bureaucracy following our exit from the EU’ without reducing workers’ rights.
Businesses will be allowed to consult their employees directly if there are no current employee representatives in place, giving them greater flexibility to inform and discuss a transfer with their employees. This will apply to:
- businesses with fewer than 50 employees undertaking a transfer of any size; and
- businesses of any size undertaking a transfer of fewer than 10 employees.
Further Information
Join the HR Solutions team virtually, for their annual employment law seminar to find out about recent and forthcoming changes to UK Employment Law in 2024
