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Hiring
A positive recruitment experience gets the working relationship off to the best start. It is important to follow a number of steps and adopt a best practice approach.
Labour Relations Agency’s New North West Office Open for Business
The Labour Relations Agency has moved to a new location in Derry/Londonderry’s Richmond Chambers in The Diamond. The more accessible city centre office has newly refurbished seminar and meeting rooms for the delivery of the Agency’s dispute resolution and advisory services.
Resolving problems
Issues and problems can arise in any workplace. If not resolved they can cause lasting damage to individuals, to the business and to relationships. It is important to ensure there are fair processes in place to deal with problems and that organisations adopt a best practice approach. We run free training seminars and briefings and have guides, template policies and flowcharts to help. Where additional support is needed we offer free, impartial and confidential conciliation, mediation and arbitration services.
Amendment to the Working Time Regulations - Pay and Carryover of holidays
The Working Time (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2023 came into force on 1st January 2024 and set out the legal obligations on carry over of holiday and what constitutes pay for the purposes of calculating holiday pay.
SSP Entitlement Northern Ireland – Temporary Extension
Temporary changes were made to the SSP Regulations effective from 14th December 2020 to deal with the exceptional circumstances faced by employers and employees in relation to Covid related illness.
New Hybrid Working Guide Offers Timely Support to Employers
To coincide with the easing of Covid restrictions and anticipated lifting of the ‘work from home’ recommendation, a new guide offering NI employers the most up-to-date advice on ‘Hybrid Working’ has been launched by the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) for Northern Ireland.
Estimating the costs of workplace conflict in Northern Ireland
Workplace conflict has a negative impact on organisational performance and the working experiences of those involved. Research commissioned by the Labour Relations Agency on workplace conflict in Northern Ireland suggests that disputes took up valuable time and eroded organisational culture.
These challenges have arguably become more acute in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic with pressure on recruitment, retention, engagement and productivity.
However, leaders and policymakers may underestimate the strategic importance of managing conflict at work. Conflict management is often unseen – taking place in the shadows and behind closed doors. Until recently, lack of visibility has been exacerbated by a lack of robust data. This analysis of the costs of workplace conflict in Northern Ireland finds that 37% of workers experience conflict each year at a cost of £851m.
The report in full can be found below, while our podcast on the topic can also be found here.
Fair Employment (School Teachers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022
This legislation was enacted by the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2022 and came into effect on 12th May 2024.
From this date, it will be unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of religious or philosophical belief or political opinion in respectof the recruitment or promotion of teachers in schools in Northern Ireland.
Prior to 2003, FETO, and its predecessors, did not prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religious or philosophical belief or political opinion in relation to any aspect of the employment of school teachers. That was due to the effects of article 71 of FETO, commonly known as the teachers’ exception.
This situation changed through a process that began in 2003 when an EU equality law, Council Directive 2000/78/EC, required the exception to be modified and
narrowed. As a result, and since then, FETO has prohibited discrimination on its equality grounds in relation to most aspects of the employment of teachers in
schools; e.g. in relation to pay, training, absence and performance management,
dismissal, harassment.
Despite that change, FETO’s prohibition of discrimination did not apply to the recruitment or promotion of teachers in schools due to the continuing effects of one part of the article 71 exception that remained.
The remaining gap in coverage was filled on 12 May 2024 with the inrtoduction of this legislation.