Every April a round of employment law changes come into effect… and although we might be going through disruption in other areas at the moment, this year is no different.
So what do you need to do?
- Comply with changes to written statements of terms and conditions – You’re now required to provide a written statement of terms and conditions to all workers, not just employees. This includes those on zero-hours contracts. It no longer requires a minimum length of service and it applies from the worker’s first day working for you.
- Make sure you implement new rights where parental bereavement leave and pay are concerned – The parents of a child who dies on or after 6th April 2020 now have a right to take up two weeks’ parental bereavement leave, with pay at a statutory minimum rate. This also applies to stillbirths occurring after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
- It’s gender pay gap reporting time again – If you have more than 250 employees you’ll already be in the habit of reporting, annually, on your gender pay gap. Although this reporting requirement is temporarily suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak it will come around, so get prepared.
- Make sure your workers are paid the national minimum wage – The national living wage for workers aged 25 and over increases to £8.72 per hour on 1 April 2020. Other national minimum wage rates also increase on 1 April 2020, with hourly rates rising to £8.20 for workers aged 21 to 24, to £6.45 for workers aged 18 to 20 and to £4.55 for workers aged 16 or 17.
- Statutory family-related pay and statutory sick pay are increasing – The weekly rate of statutory maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental pay increases to £151.20 from 5 April 2020. The weekly rate of statutory sick pay increases to £95.85 from 6 April 2020. Importantly, the Government has announced that it will introduce measures requiring employers to pay statutory sick pay from the first day of an employee’s sickness, rather than after three waiting days, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Update statutory redundancy calculations – If you make an employee redundant you must now pay those with two years’ service an amount based on their weekly pay, length of service and age, subject to a maximum amount of £538.
- Holiday pay is changing – Not that anyone is going on holiday at the moment but as of today the holiday pay reference period for workers without normal working hours increases from 12 weeks to 52 weeks. This means you’ll need to adjust how you’re calculating holiday pay for those working irregular hours.
- Equal pay for qualifying agency workers – You can no longer pay agency workers less than your own workers, as long as they have completed a 12-week qualifying period.
