Employment law: what is new for 2024?

By Alex Jones, Managing Director, 365 Employment Law Solicitors.

April was a busy month for employment practitioners! There have been several key employment law changes, which are now in force. Here’s a rundown of what’s new in employment law:

1. Flexible working

On 6 April 2024, the right to request flexible working became a right from day one. As a result of this, all employees now have the right to request flexible working regardless of their length of service (previously you needed 26 weeks’ service).

In addition, regulations introduced at the end of March also brought about the commencement of the following changes from 6 April:

• Employees can make two flexible working requests in 12 months (but only one at a time).

• Employers now have two months in which to respond to a flexible working request.

• Employers must consult with employees before refusing any request.

• Employees no longer need to explain the impact of their request.

The revised statutory Acas Code of Practice on requests for flexible working has also now come into force and should be followed by employers when they are dealing with flexible working requests. Although a failure to follow the Code does not directly give rise to liability in legal proceedings, Employment Tribunals will take the Code into account when considering relevant cases.

For HR teams and individuals, you should ensure your policies and procedures are updated to reflect these changes, as a minimum. It may also be useful to provide additional training or how-to for managers on how to deal with such requests. In particular, managers should be aware that requests can now be made from day one for employees which will impact newly recruited staff as this is a big change to previous practice.

2. Protection from redundancy

In a redundancy situation women on maternity leave and employees on adoption or shared parental leave have had the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy (where available) in priority over employees.

As of 6 April, the law has now extended this right to:

• Pregnant employees, from the date they inform their employer of their pregnancy.

• Those returning from long-term family leave (ie maternity leave, adoption leave and statutory parental leave if over six consecutive weeks long).

These periods of protection will last for 18 months after the date of childbirth/adoption, regardless of how much leave the employee takes. In most cases will include the period of time the employee is back at work following leave.

This is a very significant additional protection since it extends the length of the “priority status” period for eligible employees, potentially giving rise to a greater number of protected individuals in a redundancy situation. While no immediate action is needed, it will need to be carefully considered if you are planning any redundancy exercises from this point onwards, to ensure suitable alternative vacancies are identified and offered to the full category of individuals now protected. A failure to look for suitable alternative vacancies for protected individuals could risk potential claims for automatically unfair dismissal or possible discrimination.

3. Changes to holiday pay and entitlement

From any holiday years starting from April onwards, employers will have the option for two new ways to calculate holiday pay and entitlement for part-year and irregular hours workers (as defined in the statute):

• A new method of calculating annual leave based on an accrual method, calculated at 12.07 per cent of hours worked in a pay period.

• Rolled up holiday pay (the practice of including an amount for holiday pay on top of a worker’s normal hourly rate, paid at the time they perform the work, rather than when they are on holiday).

The Government has published guidance for employers on calculating holiday entitlement and pay for part-year and irregular hours workers. This guidance was updated on 1 April 2024.  The main change is that in the original version, the guidance included the example of someone who worked part of the year with annualised pay.  The previous guidance said they would not qualify as a part-year worker because there were no weeks where they did not receive pay.

In the latest version of the guidance, the government has removed this example and instead included suggested it may be possible for someone to qualify as a part-year worker if they are paid ‘during’ periods they are not working, provided that there is no expectation for them to work in that period and they are not paid ‘for’ that period.  Although this change does not alter the underlying law in any way, it does provide scope for those engaged for part of the year but paid annualised pay to come within the statutory definition of part-year worker.

4. Carer’s Leave

The Carer’s Leave Regulations 2024 have now come in to force. These give employees the right to apply for up to one week of unpaid carer’s leave in any 12-month period:

• There is no service requirement for taking carer’s leave (it is a ‘day one’ right).

• The leave must be used to care for a dependent with a long-term care need.

• The minimum period of leave that can be taken is half a working day, up to a maximum of one week. It does not need to be taken in consecutive blocks.

• Employees must give notice of their wish to take carer’s leave (either twice as long as the period of leave requested or giving three days’ notice, whichever is longer).

• Employers may postpone carer’s leave if they consider it will unduly disrupt their business, but they must allow the leave to be taken within one month of the initial request.

• Employees do not need to provide evidence in relation to a request for carer’s leave and employers cannot require them to provide it.

• Employees who take carer’s leave will be protected from detriment or dismissal as a result.

Employers should ensure that their relevant policies are updated to reflect this change.

5. Paternity Leave

Greater flexibility has been introduced to statutory paternity leave for employees where the expected week of childbirth is after 6 April 2024, or the expected date of placement for adoption is after this date. In summary:

• Leave can be taken in two separate one-week blocks, and may be taken at any time within the first year after birth or adoption.

• Employees need to give 28 days’ notice of their intention to take leave (or seven days of being matched in cases of adoption).

• Employees must still give notice of their entitlement to take leave 15 weeks before the expected week of birth.

Again, paternity leave policies should be updated in light of these changes.

What other employment law changes are expected and when?

These are further employment law changes taking place in the next 12 months, with the following changes coming up:

• 1 July 2024 Changes to TUPE relating to when employers can consult directly with employees comes into force.

• Summer 2024 The new Code of Practice on Dismissal and Re-engagement is expected to be brought into force.

• Updated draft code on “fire and rehire” published

• September 2024 A new statutory right for eligible workers to request a more predictable working pattern is expected to come into force.

• Latest Employment Law Reforms Update due

• 26 October 2024 The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 will come into force. This will require employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees in the course of their employment.

• April 2025 Changes to neonatal care will come into force (under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023). Eligible employees whose new-born baby is admitted to neo-natal care will be able to take up to 12 weeks additional paid leave.

Employers should always be alert to any changes and take advice at the earliest opportunity.

Tel: 01903 863284

www.365employmentlaw.co.uk