Three 2022 employment law tips for HR teams

Following on from part 1, we’ve outlined below three further employment law tips for businesses to be aware of to help plan effectively for the year ahead:

Bank holiday entitlement during Platinum Jubilee: 2 and 3 June 2022

In celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the government has announced a further bank holiday which will take place on Friday 3 June. Furthermore, the late May bank holiday has been rescheduled for Thursday, 2 June.

Employers must consider how they will handle the extra bank holiday. An employee’s contract of employment will determine this to some extent. For example, if the employee’s contract allows them to take leave on “all bank and public holidays”, the employer is required to grant the additional day as leave.

Employers may choose to grant the extra bank holiday as leave as a goodwill gesture to employees for their hard work, even if they are not contractually obliged to grant this.

How do you know if the Employment Contract entitles employees to the extra Bank Holiday?

Here are some common contract sections, including if it entitles employees to the additional 2022 Bank Holiday.

Entitles:

Contract States: ‘Employee is entitled to 20 days plus bank holidays.’

This wording means the employee has a contractual entitlement to the additional Bank Holiday.

Does not automatically entitle:

Contract States: ‘Employee is entitled to 20 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays’.

This limits the employee to only the 8 in the 2022 holiday year. However, it could be agreed which of the nine bank holiday dates are taken.

Contract States: ‘Employee is entitled to 28 days or 5.6 weeks including bank holidays’.

The employee is not be entitled to the additional bank holiday on 3 June, however again which Bank Holidays are taken can be agreed.

Contract States: ‘bank holidays are a normal working day and 8 bank holidays are given’.

There is no entitlement to the additional bank holiday of the 3rd June.

Employers must plan for possible staffing issues. If they predict their business will be exceptionally busy on these days, they may require additional workers, and they may see an increase in requests for annual leave around this time.

Digital Right to Work Checks to be made permanent: 6 April 2022

The Government has announced that Digital Right to Work (RTW) Checks are to be made permanent from 6 April 2022.

Digital RTW checks were introduced on a temporary basis to alleviate the practical difficulties associated with completing physical checks while working remotely during the pandemic.

These were meant to expire in June 2021 but were extended to make the process easier and quicker for employers struggling with staff shortages and ongoing periods of remote working arrangements.

Revise your statutory redundancy pay calculations: 6 April 2022

On 6 April, new restrictions on statutory redundancy pay for employees will take effect. If an employee who had been with the company for two years is dismissed for redundancy, employers must pay those a sum depending on their weekly wage, duration of service and age.

Currently, the weekly pay is limited to a certain amount of £544 as of 6 April 2021. However, this amount may change this year. The new figure will be confirmed in the Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2022, which is expected to be released in February.

For redundancy dismissals occurring on or after 6 April 2022, HR professionals should ensure that calculations are made on the basis of this new maximum amount.

If you would like more detail on the upcoming employment law developments for 2022, please don’t hesitate to contact our expert team.