It’s good to talk to employees as long as you heed new laws
Last updated 19:26, Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Fresh regulations have made informing staff more complicated, writes Hazel Phillips of Burnetts Solicitors.
GOOD employers have long taken pride in how well they communicate with their employees and there is wide acceptance that good communication between employer and employee will lead to a more committed workforce with lower rates of absenteeism and staff turnover.
With this in mind, last month the Government extended new legislation on formal “informing and consulting” to businesses with 50 or more employees.
Under The Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 (visit www.opsi.gov.uk for details), employees can now ask to be consulted on issues such as upcoming mergers, new areas of business, important successes or failures and upcoming large redundancies or recruitment.
The regulations have applied to organisations with 150 plus employees since April 2005 and to those with 100 or more employees since April 2007.
It is important to be aware that these regulations do not mean that employers must automatically inform and consult with their employees. Unless employees make a valid request or an employer decides to trigger the regulations themselves, the employer does not have to do anything.
Employers will still have a duty to inform and consult as usual in certain situations (for example, with regards to large-scale redundancies) but, once triggered, the regulations extend the scope of workplace informing and consulting and impose additional obligations on employers eg employers could agree with their employees to inform them about business development plans.
Once the regulations are triggered, an agreement must be negotiated between the employer and the employee representatives.
That agreement needs to:
- Specify how and when the employer will inform and consult;
- Provide for the selection of employee representatives or state that they will consult with the workforce directly;
- Be approved by employees;
- Be in writing and dated.
Organisations which already have a formal agreement in place dealing with when and on what they will consult with their employees should ensure that the existing agreement complies with the requirements of these regulations. Although these regulations might at first seem quite straightforward, there are special rules for working out how part-time or temporary employees count towards your employment total as well as specific time scales, so employers need to take care and should take legal advice on how the regulations apply in their own business.
- Hazel Phillips is a solicitor in Burnetts’ employment law department.
- For further information on your duty to inform and consult, contact Hazel on 01228 552222 or visit www.burnetts.co.uk.
