I Am an Employer. What Are Four Employment Law Questions I Might Forget to Ask in England?

As an employer, you need to understand your legal obligations towards your employees. However, employment law is a broad area that is prone to change. Hence, you are likely to have many questions. This article will explain four employment questions you fulfil your legal obligations as an employer.

1. If I Employ Staff on a Fixed-Term Contract, Can I End It Early?

Some staff members may be on fixed-term contracts, meaning you employ them for a certain period. This can be useful because you:

• need a worker to cover a member of staff on maternity leave;
• have a one-off task your business needs to complete; or
• have an organisational event approaching.

However, there may be times when you do not need staff for as long as initially planned. Hence, you will need to end their fixed-term contract early. Where this occurs, you may be able to end the contract early if, for example, it has a:

• break clause or notice clause; or
• termination clause.

Otherwise, when your employee’s contract ends, you could choose not to renew it. However, if you end the contract, you must do so fairly. Otherwise, you could face a claim for unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal if your employee has been employed for at least two years.

2. Do I Need to Consider Settlement Agreements?

Settlement agreements are worth considering when employing staff. These agreements allow you to decide the terms of the settlement if you terminate their employment. 

Notably, the agreement is legally binding. Hence, your employee cannot pursue an employment claim with an employment tribunal if you have a settlement agreement.

3. Can I Give Any Reason for Dismissing an Employee?

When dismissing an employee, you must have a reason for the dismissal. So, you should question why you are dismissing a staff member. This is a crucial question to ask as you can only dismiss an employee fairly if you have one of the five legal fair reasons for dismissal. These reasons include:

• conduct;
• capability;
• redundancy;
• Illegality; or
• another substantial reason.

4. Can I Require My Staff to Work Long Hours Without Breaks?

An important question you should ask yourself as an employer is whether you can require your staff to work long hours without breaks. Perhaps you assume that as long as you and your employee agree on their hours, it is up to both of you to decide how long their work hours are. 

However, there is a law governing the maximum hours your staff can work and the breaks they have a right to. For example, your employee cannot work more than 48 hours per week unless they have signed a written agreement to opt-out of this legal requirement.

Additionally, there are other rules relating to your staff’s work for an hour and breaks. This includes your employee’s entitlement to:

• a 30-minute break when their shift is longer than 6 hours;
• at least an 11-hour break between two shifts;
• 24 hours off work each week; and 
• 48 hours off work each fortnight. 

Key Takeaways

Employment law is not an accessible area of law to grapple with, mainly because there is so much of it to understand. Nevertheless, there are some questions you should keep front of mind when managing your employees. These include whether you:

• can end fixed-term contracts;
• should use settlement agreements;
• have a legal reason to dismiss your employees; and
• can require your employees to work for a certain period. 

If you need help understanding employment law questions in England that you may forget to ask, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page. 

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