The end of the compromise agreement?

With effect from 6 April 2011, HMRC has issued new instructions which state that employers must withhold tax from payments made to an employee as if the employee is entitled to no allowances where:

 a new employee starts work without producing a P45;

 a payment which is not included in a P45 is made to an employee after they have left employment (for example, a termination payment).

 an employer starts paying an occupational pension to an existing employee in addition to their salary.

It is the second situation which may give rise to concern for employers particularly where they are entering into a compromise agreement. Watch this space for more details.

Its just the odd day off sick!!

Its Friday and Monday and Bob is off again, the third time in as many months. The day after pay day and Sue has another migraine, she’ll be back tomorrow with a new outfit.

Do you have some employees that are having too many odd days off sick? One in five employers do. If you are one of them it is important that you don’t put off dealing with it. There will always be some level of absenteeism but if you actively deal with it in a fair and consistent way you should be able to keep it to a minimum.

Don’t be one of the 28% of employers who do not have a formal sickness reporting procedure. Make sure that you have a clear and consistently applied absence management policy together with a clear idea of how you are going to tackle the issue.

Make sure that your sickness absence policy sets out a reporting structure. Ensure that employees call before a set time to notify you that they are not coming into work. Ask them what’s wrong, how long they think they will be off for and make a note on their personnel file. Make sure that all line managers know what the policy is and actively apply it. According to Personnel Today, 40% of employers cite line managers lack of effective involvement in absence management as the biggest contributing factor to poor absenteeism.

When employees do come back have a quick return to work interview, ask them to tell you the cause of their absence, write it down and ask them to sign it, that way you will always have something to refer back to if you think that their absence is becoming a problem.

If people are regularly off sick and there is a pattern to their absence you need to speak to them sooner rather than later but be sure of the issues. For example work out a percentage of time off compared to others. Speak to them in private and ask them what the problem is.

It may be that they are off on regular occasions as a result of something that you can help them with, for example unfavourable behaviour by another employee or concerns about their work or workload. If it appears that there is no acceptable explanation behind their absences then tell them that if their attendance doesn’t improve then the next step will be disciplinary action.

Government says no to £2 billion bill for pregnant woment

Employers are likely to be breathing a sigh of relief after Edward Davey, the Minister for Employment Relations confirmed that he will be lobbying against the European Parliaments proposed 20 weeks of maternity pay at full pay stating that it would impose an unacceptable estimated cost of £2billion on the government.

The main proposals under the Pregnant Workers Directive were that the minimum period of leave would be increased from the current UK minimum of 2 weeks to a proposed 14 weeks to 20 weeks, giving women full pay for the minimum 20 week period and introducing two weeks fully paid paternity leave.

The UK government were also opposed on the basis that the proposals were socially regressive as even though all women who earn over £124.88 per, the UK’s current flat rate of maternity pay (which will increase in April) would be better off under the European Parliament’s proposals, it would be of a greater benefit to those with higher earnings.

Currently those on the lowest of incomes generally receive more of their salary over the course of their maternity leave. For example, someone on £10,000 a year will receive 69% of their salary as their total maternity pay whereas those earning £60,000 would only receive 23%.

Another reason put forward for opposing the proposals, other than the huge estimated cost, is that the “rigid” model proposed would make it harder for shared parental leave, something which the government has committed to introduce.