ACAS Mediation

Our Managing Partner Anna Denton-Jones undertook the ACAS internal workplace mediation course in April 2008 following which she had to produce project work, complete qualificatin awarded by the ER. Under this Certificate Anna is now qualified to deal with the following issues:

• Understanding conflict and mediation in the workplace


• Introducing the clients to mediation


• Moving through the mediation process


• Skills and strategies for managing the mediation process


• Practising mediation skills

Anyone interested in findin out more about mediation and how it may assist in resolving workplace disputes please speak to Anna on 02920 647314.

Morgan Denton Jones wins Business Start up of the Year Award

Mark Morgan and Jenny Jones attended this prestigious event on the 15th October 2008 they were delighted to collect Morgan Denton Jones' award.

Marble Seminar 16th October

Mark Morgan and Anna Denton-Jones were invited by Marble Recruitment to speak at their popular event held at the Copthorne Hotel in Cardiff. The theme of this recent event was legal issues surrounding social networking and blogging and provided a great forum for those in attendance to share their views and experiences of ways in which employees use technology to both positive and negative effects.

One of the highlights of the session was Mark Morgan's quiz. The prize, bottle of wine was won fairly and squarely by Leroy from Marble Recruitment!

For details of the next Marble seminar please contact Nicola O'Connor at nicola@marblerecruitment.co.uk

Major changes to maternity rules mean higher burden for employers

For many years there was a legal distinction between Ordinary Maternity Leave (often abbreviated to OML) and Additional Maternity Leave (often abbreviated to AML). There were different rules on who qualified to take these different forms of leave and each form of leave attracted different entitlements. With the Work and Families Act of 2006 extending women’s rights to take leave so that all women can now take up to 1 year’s leave (being 26 weeks OML and 26 week’s AML), regardless of their length of service, this distinction began to be eroded.

The process of removing the distinction has been further advanced by changes to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the long-named Maternity and Parental Leave and Paternity and Adoptive Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2008. One of the reasons behind this was a case which suggested our legislation had not fully brought the EC Equal treatment framework directive into force in the UK; forcing our legislators into action.

For mothers of babies due or employees who adopt on or after October 5th employers will have to take great care not to discriminate against women taking AML by removing non-cash benefits which previously it had been safe to do. For example, many maternity leave policies provided for the employee to be able to keep her company car during OML but to have to return it to the employer if she took AML. The same was often true of benefits such as gym membership or private healthcare which were often provided during OML but not AML. Now, these non-cash benefits should continue to be provided throughout the entire period of maternity leave (up to 1 year).

Many employers who arranged childcare vouchers for their employees via salary sacrifice schemes are being caught out, having not appreciated that these benefits will continue to accrue during AML. HMRC have published guidance called “Statutory maternity leave - salary sacrifice and non-cash benefits” (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employers/sml-salary-sacrifice.pdf). It includes useful worked examples of a number of different scenarios.

Holiday is another area which is impacted: employees continue to accrue full contractual and statutory holiday pay for the entire duration of the leave period.

The European legal position suggests that this extension of rights would also cover pensions which should be maintained during maternity leave: something our Government is adamant is not the case and argues that the recent changes don’t affect. Employers in the UK are currently adopting a “risk not paying them until there is a clarity that we have to” approach which could see fingers burned in the long-term especially in the public sector where it is easier for an employee to enforce EC law directly.

It is worth reviewing your practice to ensure compliance as a woman who is deprived of any contractual or discretionary benefits during OML or AML may have claims for deductions from wages, a claim that she has been subjected to a detriment for a reason connected with pregnancy or maternity, a claim for breach of contract, automatically unfair dismissal (if she treats herself as constructively dismissed) in addition to a sex discrimination action, for which unlimited damages apply.

So what do you need to do? After understanding the changes, you will need to update your policies or handbooks to reflect the new legal position. I would advise against maintaining the status quo (hoping no-one will recognise their rights, risking a claim) as much as I would advise against removing the non-cash benefit to avoid the changes as that could get you into difficulties over unilateral changes to the contract of employment. If you did decide to make changes to the contract of employment there are proper procedures to be followed to achieve this including consultation with employees.

Mrs Denton-Jones

Anna finally tied the knot with Pete on 6th September. Mark and Jenny joined her to celebrate her big day. Congratulations Mrs Denton-Jones!

CIPD Event

Mark was honoured to be invited to speak to 60 members of the South East Wales Branch of the CIPD on the subject of Social and Professional Networking and Blogging - What are the issues for HR? The event was well received, so well in fact he has been asked to roll out the same talk to others.