If you employ staff, it is essential you keep in tune with what employment law changes are coming down the tracks this year. Here is a summary:
Sick Leave
Currently there is no statutory obligation on employers to pay employees who are absent from work on sick leave – whether certified or uncertified. New legislation will provide for:
The introduction of statutory sick pay scheme.
A requirement for employers to pay sick pay at a rate of 70% of an employee’s wage, subject to a daily threshold of €110.
It is proposed to phase the sick pay scheme in over a four-year period as follows:
3 days per year in 2022
5 days in 2023
7 days in 2024
10 days in 2025
Remote Working
The Government has published a Right to Request Remote Working Bill where employees will have a statutory right to request remote working. Employers will have to follow a statutory process when dealing with such requests, within certain timelines. If you don’t have a Remote Working Policy in place, now is the time to put it in place.
Public Holidays
This year we had the benefit of a public holiday, following the already established public holiday of St. Patrick’s Day. From 2023, the first Monday in February will be a public holiday. However, should the 1st day of February happen to fall on a Friday, then Friday 1 February will be a public holiday.
Protected Disclosures: Whistleblowing
New Protected Disclosures legislation, once enacted, will:
Expand the ambit of “relevant wrongdoings”.
Apply to volunteers, interns, job applicants, suppliers, shareholders, and non-executive directors.
Exclude interpersonal grievances from “relevant wrongdoing”.
Require that employers with 50 – 250 employees establish whistleblowing procedures and internal channels.
Maternity
Time off for breastfeeding breaks is to be extended to 2 years.
Transgender men who have obtained a gender recognition certificate under the Gender Recognition Act 2015, and later give birth, would also be entitled to maternity leave.
Redundancy
Many employees were laid off during Covid 19. Certain lay-off periods between 13 March 2020 and 30 September 2021 because of the Pandemic will be reckonable for the purposes of calculating an employee’s statutory redundancy entitlement.
Predictable Working Conditions
All employees will have the right to more complete and detailed information on the essential aspects of the work the undertake. It includes:
Placing a six-month cap on probationary periods, except in exceptional circumstances.
Preventing employers from disallowing an employee from working for another employer outside work hours or penalising them for doing so.
Setting minimum conditions for the predictability of work providing that after six month’s service an employee can request a form of employment with more predictable and secure working conditions.
What should you do?
Keep an eye out to when these changes come into place. You will need to adjust existing policies or in some cases develop new ones. Canavan Byrne can help. Contact