News

Each day our HR Advice Team are contacted and asked about staff members who are on long-term sickness absence, and what they can and cannot do. This article will explore a few of those questions and debunk some of the myths around sickness absence: Can we contact employees who are on long-term sickness absence? It is a common misconception that employees on long-term sickness absence cannot be contacted, and therefore cannot be dealt with accordingly. This is incorrect, and it can, to the contrary, put a Company in a negative light if they take no steps at all to engage [...]

I was recently providing flexible working advice to a Client who had received a request from one of their employees to change their hours of work. I was asked questions such as, “If they’ve only been here for 5 weeks, do I have to consider the request?”, and, “Can I not just refuse it?”. The answers were ‘yes’ and ‘no’, in that order. Although the law on Flexible Working changed on 6th April 2024, it is not a surprise we are being asked questions such as these when a recent study by ACAS found that 2 in 5 employers [...]

Supporting Menopausal Women in the workplace. Menopause should not be considered as taboo and everyone should be able to talk about it openly.

The ever-changing employment landscape is about to witness a significant transformation with the impending enactment of the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023, scheduled to come into force in September 2024.