Rojgar Job News

What are our health and safety obligations in respect of staff working from home? Within a few weeks, maybe now only a few days, there will be more UK employees working from home than ever before. It remains to be seen whether this will herald irreversible longer-term changes to the traditional commuter model, but in the short-term, and assuming you can make it work logistically and managerially, is it ok legally? In particular, how far do your obligations to provide a safe system at work under the Health & Safety at Work Act apply once the employee has watered his plant for the last time, packed up his laptop and headed home to carry on your business from his kitchen table? Section 2 HSWA imposes an obligation on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all its employees. Section 2(2) expands that to require the provision of appropriate instruction, information and training, and Section 2(2)(e) refers to the making of “arrang...

There are four main moving parts to bringing people back to work, only two of which were mentioned by the Prime Minister in his speech last night. He made clear very properly the continued focus on health (particularly the R factor – the rate at which one person with the virus is likely to infect others) as the determinant of steps out of lockdown and that those steps would not be dictated by mere hope or (slightly less credibly) financial pressures. He could not say anything else. But before his words were even cold, commentators had seized on the tension between his suggestion that workers who cannot work from home (especially construction and manufacturing) should be “actively encouraged” to return to on the one hand, and his advice that they avoid public transport on the other. Walk or cycle if you can, he said brightly, surely aware that for the vast majority of commuters this suggestion is at best of academic interest and at worst, borderline insulting to their i...

In a previous blog, we mentioned in mildly critical tones that the Belgian government still hadn’t issued a regulation on a proposed special “Corona leave” for young parents struggling to balance (home)work and the care of their children. It could just be coincidence, obviously, but the very next day the government reached agreement on the topic. Unfortunately we have then had to wait until today for publication of the details in the relevant Royal Decree. The new rules may be summarised as follows: Corona leave is a variant of the traditional parental leave, but taking one does not impact the other (as in, the balance of outstanding parental leave will not be reduced by the Corona leave). With the approval of the employer, employees may also switch from the traditional parental to Corona leave part way through. The regime applies retroactively as from 1 May. Access is subject to the following conditions: Having at least one child below the age of 12 (or a disabled chi...

If we are right to think that the unravelling of lockdown will be accompanied by a sharp increase in the number of employees requesting to work from home, then many employers will shortly start to face some serious posers in relation to the flexible working scheme. These are not new questions, but will be thrown into starker prominence by the sheer number of requests you may have to deal with at the same time. Of course you should grant them where you can, but what if you are unsure? Does granting one home working request set a precedent for others? Assuming that allowing employee A to work from home did not lead any important wheels to fall off, does this mean that his/her colleague B, doing the same job and seeking the same arrangement, must necessarily get a green light also?  Yes and no, but mostly no. A’s success means that you cannot argue that at an “principle” level the role cannot be performed remotely.  But that is not the end of the matter....

By now, many employees working from home in the lockdown will have made quite firm decisions around how they wish to operate going forward.  Some will have decided that there is nothing in their lives quite like their family and, for that reason, that they wish to extend their WFH indefinitely.  Others, on probably very similar grounds, will want to get back to the office as a matter of some urgency. One way or another, we think that employers can expect a significant upswing in flexible working requests starting more or less at the moment that the government relaxes its “WFH if you can” guidance. Much has been written on the shift in the balance of power around flexible working applications.  The pandemic has moved the employer’s usual starting point from “We haven’t done it before, so it probably won’t work, so no”, to “We have done it before and it broadly did work, so, well, what now?” For present purposes, let us...