D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: Flexible working and indirect sex discrimination

This week has seen the opening of a new Government consultation on proposals to change the current flexible working framework. These proposals include making the right to request flexible working a day one right and consideration being given to the business reasons for refusing requests and the administrative process for dealing with these. Following the fundamental shift to flexible working during the pandemic, as employers now start requiring employees to return to the more traditional office based 9-5, we anticipate there will be an increase in flexible working requests.

D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: Refusal to allow an employee an appeal against a redundancy is not the be all and end all but it is an important factor

In the case of Gwynedd Council v Barratt, the UK Court of Appeal has ruled that the refusal by the employer to allow an employee the right to an appeal against their dismissal by reason of redundancy, was a relevant factor in determining whether the dismissal was unfair or not; however, it would not make the dismissal inevitably unfair.

D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: The benefits of having a Hybrid Working Policy in the new working age

The global pandemic has seen a multitude of changes to the daily lives of individuals across the world and enforced home working has catapulted the working environment into a virtual and home based reality. Despite initial challenges, many organisations and individuals have seen the benefits of working from home. As such, employers up and down the country are beginning to consider making home working a new norm of the future by introducing home working or hybrid working policies.

D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: The burden of proof in Discrimination Cases under the Equality Act 2010

The case of Royal Mail Group Ltd v Efobi reviewed whether Section 136 (2) of the Equality Act 2010 (“Section 136 (2)”) had altered the burden of proof in employment cases alleging discrimination. Mr Efobi, the Claimant in this case, was arguing that the Equality Act had removed the burden of proof from Claimants to demonstrate that on the balance of possibilities, in the absence of an adequate explanation, an unlawful act of discrimination had been committed and instead created a neutral burden.

D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: Government Response to Consultation on Sexual Harassment and New Duties for Employers

On 11 July 2019, the Government opened a consultation to review sexual harassment in the workplace on the back of the #metoo movement. That consultation closed on 2 October 2019 and given the intervening pandemic, the Government has only just released their response. This has confirmed that the Government intends to introduce a duty requiring employers to prevent sexual harassment.

D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: Limitations to the Employer’s Justification Defence in a Disability Claim

Managing absent employees can be a long process, particularly where the absence is as a result of a disability. It can be tempting for employers to rely on medical evidence that is not current with a view to bringing matters to a close sooner but as the recent case of Brightman v TIAA Limited has held, this can have an impact on any later objective justification defence.

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