HR News January 2010

HR News for January looks at what could be in store for HR Professionals in 2010. We take a look at employment law changes and how organisations can plan for the upturn, including budgeting for investments to achieve their business goals in the year ahead. We also look at The Equality Bill proposed changes, which looks to be approved by the next General Election.

What’s in store for 2010?

Make sure you are on top of employment law changes and be prepared for the upturn!

The new year is an ideal time to review working practices. Attracting the best staff isn't always about pay - there may now be an opportunity to introduce new working patterns, flexible hours contracts, new remuneration arrangements and other measures to allow employers to be in the best shape to respond to the upturn, while keeping staff motivated. This could especially be the case if there have been recent restructurings and redundancies. Employers should look at their business as a whole  to see if they are best placed to meet possible increases in demand.

A likely piece of new legislation to be introduced in 2010, will be the right to extended paternity leave, enabling mothers of children due on or after 3 April 2011 to transfer up to six months of their maternity leave to the father when they return to work. Organisation should examine now what kind of impact this might have on their business.   Much like maternity leave this could be particularly disruptive to the operations of a small firm, but larger firms may also be caught off-guard, if key staff take time off.

When the economic recovery does gather momentum, the more a business recruits, the more often it is exposed to legislation. These include equal opportunities rights to religious expression in the workplace, new judicial guidance on defining the meaning of a disabled person and disability discrimination by association. In addition, if your organisation is thinking about extending the kind of flexible working practices it can support, it may be  advisable to budget for investments which will be necessary to achieve this – for example more investment in IT systems might be one issue.

The law is set to change in respect of agency workers, in order to comply with a European Directive.  The idea is that agency workers will have much the same rights as other workers, perhaps eroding the point of having agency workers in the first place.  Watch out for the proposals, which may have serious consequences for employers: what workers gain employers will probably stand to lose.

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How will your business be affected?

2010 will definately see a General Election. In the coming weeks we will see all the political parties outline their post-election intentions for business, companies and employment. If a Tory Government takes power and, if it can afford to live up to its promises, we should see a reduction in state intervention in the workplace. 

In 2009 – Many organisations have had to make redundancies, downsize and reduce staff numbers. Next year however, you could see employers re-acquainting themselves with hiring, staff retention and dealing with motivation issues. Planning ahead now can put an organisation ahead of the competition and ready for the recovery ahead.

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Equality bill may be limited to organisations with more than 500 staff

Women and equality minister Harriet Harman is set to water down equal pay rules in the equality bill to reduce the number of businesses affected, it has recently been reported.

The changes proposed include raising the threshold for companies to produce equal pay audits to those with 500 or more employees. As it stands, the bill will ask organisations with 250 employees or more to voluntarily produce pay audits until 2013. After this the rules could become compulsory.

There has been strong opposition to the bill from business groups and reducing the burden for employers could ensure the legislation is passed before the next general election.

The proposed amendments could follow a report from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which is due out in January 2010. The EHRC is said to regard pay audits requiring companies with 250 to 500 staff to provide the same data as larger companies as impractical.