Are your HR policies and procedures up to date?

This April sees several new pieces of UK legislation and associated employment regulations come into force. The key changes, effective from 6 April 2024 are:

Flexible working regime

The right to request flexible working will become a day-one right rather than one arising after 26 weeks service.

Remember that flexible working applications can include requests for part-time, term-time, flexitime, compressed hours, and varied working locations.

Further changes to take effect include the right to make two requests a year, enhanced consultation requirements and a shorter decision timeframe, now reduced from three to two months.

Employers must also ensure that they provide reasons for rejecting any requests for flexible working arrangements. Previously, employers had the discretion to decline such requests without offering any explanation.

Paternity leave

Changes to paternity leave will include being able to take leave in two separate blocks of one week within 52 weeks of birth (up from 8 weeks).

Carer’s leave

A new day-one right to carer’s leave to provide care for a dependant with a long-term care need. This applies to anyone caring for a spouse, civil partner, child, parent or other dependant who needs care because of a disability, old age or any illness or injury likely to require at least three months’ care.

The leave is unpaid. The maximum duration of the leave is one week per year and whilst employers cannot deny an employee’s request for carer’s leave, they can postpone it if they reasonably consider that the operation of the business would be unduly disrupted if it were approved.

These three key changes will no doubt require an update to your existing policies and procedures in any staff or employee handbook.

This also provides an opportunity to make sure that your policies and procedures align with your contracts of employment where the latter may perhaps have been updated more recently.

If you would like us to help you review your current HR policies and any staff/employee handbook and update these as appropriate, do get in touch.

Redundancy protection

A further change to note, although this may not affect your policies in any handbook, is the new priority for suitable alternative employment in a redundancy situation which is to be extended to pregnant employees and those who have recently returned from maternity/adoption and shared parental leave.

This extends this right which currently only applies to employees on maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave who already have special protection in a redundancy situation.

Please get in touch if you have any questions regarding the issues discussed in this article.

E: help@jma-hrlegal.co.uk / T: +44 (0)1252 821792