Expert panel: Is the flurry of new employment laws a burden for HR?

Tina Chander, partner and head of employment law, Wright Hassall, Liam Hynes, head of people, Wilderness Agency, Karen Jackson, managing director, didlaw, Katherine Watkins, HR consultant and mergers and acquisitions adviser

What kind of challenges does such a raft of employment law changes present to HR?

Katherine Watkins: I always make sure that leaders, not just HR, know the impact that will have on their workforce. So it’s knowing what the law is and how it will impact your staff, and that should drive how you communicate it – be it a blanket one-line statement or an email to people referring to updates on the portal. Or sometimes not raising it if it’s not materially affecting your staff.

Liam Hynes: The training and comms around that should be a given. Depending on the size of your business, the way you communicate is really important too. But also policy revisions, to make sure you are compliant from a legal point of view. And then what is the potential impact on budgets? My organisation has staff in South Africa and Germany, so we want to make sure we make the offering as consistent as possible across the business.

Tina Chander: I think employers, as a whole, are very good at having policies. Where they could improve is delivering the message in those policies. I hear managers and MDs saying: ‘I think we have this policy. I need to speak to HR.’ That’s telling me there’s a disjoint between the policy and its delivery to the workforce. What’s really good about these changes is that you can perform a reset. Why not communicate all the other wonderful benefits that an organisation offers, including reminding them about a whistleblowing policy or grievance policy and saying where to locate them? I would use this opportunity to refresh the policies that are available.

Karen Jackson: The biggest single issue I see is where managers think they know what they’re doing, but they don’t always. You have to make sure that managers know, for example, if they have someone in their team with caring responsibilities; there’s now a law about that. It’s difficult because the manager’s day job is not looking at legislation, it’s managing their team. People get scared of legislation but, if you’re doing the right things and have the right policies, the aim is to stay on the right side of it

How much pressure does this amount of new legislation put on HR teams?

KW: It’s less about the pressure because, as HR, we are multifaceted in what we do to support a company. HR operates best when we take the ego out of what we are doing. We are the custodians and the majority of law doesn’t impact businesses on day one. My advice is to take out the jargon, because you’re going to disengage with a lot of people, and then be prepared to make sure that people have looked at it – and signed up if you have strong compliance.

TC: The changes are all very positive, for the benefit of employees. If that was clear from the go, you would immediately get more engagement because the changes coming in give employees more rights. It can create a bit of an HR nightmare, but you get to reset and make sure everyone knows the right information. But you can also start dealing with misconceptions. I think it’s fantastic that we have these changes. Yes, a few came into force at once on 6 April, but we then have a staggered approach. In reality, we know about these laws six to 12 months before they take effect. We shouldn’t be feeling stressed – we should be ready to embrace the changes.

How do you ensure people positively engage with the changes in the law?

LH: We know well in advance so we should have a system of tracking them. It’s then about effective communication and coming up with a plan. Line managers know their team best. Feedback is so important, as is making sure we can address concerns and questions promptly. What can we learn from announcing changes in April when the next one comes in?

KJ: The pressure point in the workplace sits with the managers; ensuring that people with management responsibilities know that information is key.

KW: I’ve done lunch and learns. We’ve linked them to CPD and I give other updates, so the legal updates are wrapped into other developments. I tend to encourage companies not to communicate by email unless they are a smaller size. In some organisations we’ve done a voting list and they have to click on it, and then we have a ‘naughty list’. They probably won’t read it until they need it, but at least you have a compliance list.

LH: Our teams respond really well to an interactive workshop. We also do quarterly town halls. But it’s crucial that managers understand that it can’t always be pushed back to HR.

Which new law or amendment particularly catches your eye and why?

TC: Pregnancy and redundancy. There has always been an obligation on an employer to look for an alternative role in a redundancy situation if an employee is pregnant. Now, we are extending that protection. The protection begins when you tell your employer and it lasts for 18 months. It doesn’t mean that businesses cannot make those people redundant. They can. But it should be a high alert to employers to seek advice.

KW: For me it’s flexible working. You put someone through the interview process and the psychometric testing, they meet lots of people, they have a nine-to-five contract – then on day one they ask to change their working days. If anything is going to increase my team’s work, this will.

LH: We also get less time to assess the request and the employee has no responsibility to explain how the request will impact the business. I think there’ll be more grievances and allegations of discrimination. There’s an issue about whether internal decision makers need extra training because it could be the one that causes the most problems.

KJ: The Worker Protection Act. I’m afraid I’m a sceptic on this one and I don’t think the law is the answer. There are better ways employers can tackle this: they need to be seen to have zero tolerance. There still is tolerance about this kind of behaviour and not enough people get fired when they cross the line. The one that could have the widest impact is carers’ leave because a lot of people who are working have caring responsibilities. It’s good to see it in the statute book, but I’m not sure what one week’s unpaid leave really does.