HR & employment law update

Women more likely to be underemployed

A sociological investigation on the reasons for underemployment in the UK has found that women are among the groups of UK workers more likely to be affected. ‘Underemployment’ could be time-related, ie working fewer hours than the employee would like, skills-related, where their skills are not being fully utilised, or wage-related, where they are paid less than they might expect for the work they are doing.

The research by the Underemployment Project also found younger workers, those with little qualifications and ethnic minorities to also more likely to be affected.

One of the most efficient ways of improving business performance or filling gaps you’re experiencing might be to reduce any underemployment, so it’s worth looking at your existing team for potential adjustments internally before a recruitment campaign.

Long-term sickness reaches a record high

According to the Office for National Statistics, long-term sickness absence reached a record high in 2023, with more than 2.5 million people off work on a long-term basis.

Meanwhile, Levels of absence due to poor employee mental health have increased significantly over the past year with 35% of adults saying they felt high or extreme levels of pressure and stress, and research from

Mental Health UK finding that burnout is affecting 20% of workers.

. A number of external factors such as the cost of living crisis and global events are playing a part in this, and it’s sensible to consider how you can offer practical support to those affected where possible

Legal Updates

Removal from a WhatsApp group chat is discrimination

A tribunal has ruled that a woman was discriminated against after a male senior colleague removed her from the group WhatsApp chat and then refused to add her back in, claiming there was ‘no reason’ to add her while she was off. The claimant told the tribunal that this resulted in her feeling left out as she could not keep up with work updates or take part in the ‘general chatter’ of the group.

The tribunal ruled that being deprived of interaction with their colleagues was ‘isolating’ for employees taking maternity leave, and was therefore viewed as “less favourable”

Communicating with employees on maternity leave can be a tricky thing to negotiate – some do not want to be bombarded with business-related information, whilst others do prefer to keep well-informed.? It’s important to ensure that any communication plans are agreed in advance with any employees before they go on maternity leave., to make sure they feel the communication is appropriate and don’t feel left out.

Employee who was racially profiled by a company document was discriminated against

The claimant in this case worked at Johnson & Johnson as a Senior Manager. Originally born in Nigeri, she lived there until 2007, when she then moved to the UK.

Initially she had a good working relationship with her line manager, but issues began after there were disputes regarding the claimant’s workload.

During a one to one meeting, the line manager referenced a ‘company document’ that specifically spoke about ‘Nigerian traits’ including comments like ‘Nigerians not being on time’. When told that this report was racially profiling, the manager claimed the document was to help support different nationalities to work together easily.

After raising a grievance, which was not upheld, the claimant went on sick leave until being dismissed over a year later for capability. During the hearing, the judge said: “The tribunal finds that the claimant was subjected to a detriment as a result of the profiling exercise. It aligned the claimant with a Nigerian workstyle in a manner that contained some lazy stereotypes such as references to ‘African time’ and which the claimant found to be insensitive and upsetting.”

This case highlights how crucial regular training on unconscious bias is for all employees – whilst the capability dismissal was found to be fair, the company had not taken reasonable steps to avoid discrimination.

Other news

Visa applications are suffering significant delays at the Home Office as recruiters and businesses race to submit before the big hike in fees and new rules are introduced on 6 February.

The government is consulting on reintroducing employment tribunal fees, ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court in 2017. A ￡55 fee is proposed, significantly lower than the fees introduced in 2013. The original fees led to a 53% drop in tribunal cases, contributing to the Supreme Court's decision that they hindered access to justice.

Frustrated with the tech in your company? Your staff might be too - a poll conducted by Opinium, say that 46% of employees in the UK think the current technology offered by their employer lags behind the latest offerings in the market.

My bit

Hope you enjoyed February’ newsletter…interesting to hear that Employment Tribunal fees may make a return and the discrimination potential in removing someone from a work What’sApp chat.

I’ve literally just returned to the cold from two weeks away in Thailand “the land of smiles” and it was thoroughly needed time off.? I don’t often say that but I realised having had time away and just simply sleeping, swimming and reading etc for the majority of the time, that refreshing my batteries was definitely required. ?

Sue