- CIPD and HSE free stress management tool designed to help equip managers with the skills to manage positively and prevent stress in their staff.
- Updated Acas redundancy handling booklet, providing more in depth advice on the role of the individual charged with informing and liaising with at risk employees.
- EHRC and Acas guide to maternity/pregnancy and redundancy.While this guide provides some useful advice, the section on suitable alternative vacancies is over-simplified. For example, it states that "an employee on maternity leave who has been selected for redundancy must be offered a suitable vacancy before any other employee". This will not always be correct, not least as employees on additional paternity leave will have equivalent rights to priority over suitable vacancies. It also overlooks the potential for challenging this aspect of the law: recent case law (De Belin v Eversheds Legal Services on adjusting redundancy selection criteria) could be used by a man claiming sex discrimination to argue that an employer can only give priority to a woman on maternity leave if this is a proportionate response to the legal requirement to correct any disadvantage suffered by the woman. It could be argued that an employer should be required to consider firstly whether there is any actual disadvantage in the redeployment process suffered because the woman is on leave and secondly whether it could be corrected in some other way which is less disadvantageous to the man.
Key contacts
Steve Bell
Managing Partner - Employment, Industrial Relations and Safety (Australia, Asia), Melbourne
Emma Rohsler
Regional Head of Practice (EMEA) - Employment Pensions and Incentives, Paris
Disclaimer
The articles published on this website, current at the dates of publication set out above, are for reference purposes only. They do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. Specific legal advice about your specific circumstances should always be sought separately before taking any action.