Good Work Plan comes into effect from today.
In July of 2017 Matthew Taylor published a report into modern working practices and stated that numerous changes were needed to improve the productivity of employees. In December 2018 the government responded with the “Good Work Plan” this promised developments to the law over the course of the next few years. In particular this month, April 2020. However, due to numerous worries like the Brexit and the Coronavirus outbreak companies have put the changes on the back burner. Never the less, today on the 6th April the new laws have still come into effect.
From today the following laws apply:
Changes to written contracts of employment April 6th 2020
Several changes have been introduced to the right to receive a written statement of the main terms (SMT) The document will list all of the employees key terms of employment, this will include their pay and annual leave entitlements. Up until today organisations were given 2 months to give this to a new employee. The grace period that existed from today has been removed. This means that the SMT will now have to be given to the employee from the first day of their employment.
Not only this, more details now will have to be stipulated in the SMT these are as follows:
- Details of training provisions and requirements.
- Terms and conditions that relate to work have also been extended to cover the terms that relate to normal hours of work, the days of the week that the employee will be required to work and if these will vary.
- Terms related to paid leave such as family friendly leave.
- All details of other employee benefits, such as benefits in kind or financial benefits.
- Terms relating to probationary periods including those in relation to length and conditions.
Employers now also have to provide and SMT to their “workers” as well as all of their employees, this includes employees on a zero hour contract and casual workers.
National Minimum Wage increase April 6th 2020
The rates are for the National Minimum Wage. The rates change every April. The New rates below:
Holiday pay changes April 6th 2020
From the 6th April 2020 companies will now have to use a period of 52 weeks when calculating holiday pay to work out the average opposed to the previous period of 12 weeks.
This will be used to calculate holiday pay for employees who work irregular hours. The new calculation will balance out peaks and troughs of working hours throughout the year.
Parental bereavement leave
As of today, the 6th April 2020 all eligible employees will be allowed to take 2 weeks leave if they suffer either a stillbirth after 24 weeks into their pregnancy or a child under the age of 18 dies. This right is implemented from day one of employment and employees are entitled to take these in one single block of 2 weeks or two separate blocks of 1 week leave. Employees will have up to 56 weeks following the bereavement to take this leave.
Agency workers
As of today the “Swedish derogation model” contracts given to agency workers are banned. The contracts were used as a legal loophole to avoid paying agency workers the same basic pay as their direct recruits at the company after 12 weeks of being assigned. Anyone who is at present engaged on one of these contracts will be entitled to a statement to explain the effect of the ban on their pay. This will need to be given out no later than the 30th April 2020.
All agency workers will also now be entitled to a key facts sheet before agreeing to any terms which they will be undertaking work. This will include the minimum rate of pay, any deductions that could be expected from their pay and the type of contract the agency worker will be given.
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