What an Employer Needs To Know About Informing and Consulting Employees in England

As an employer, there are certain circumstances when you are legally required to consult your workforce. Consultation is necessary to gain employees’ views about certain issues and give them information about workplace procedures. You must know about your obligations to ensure you fulfil them. Hence, this article will explain what you, as an employer, need to know about informing and consulting employees in England.

What is Informing and Consulting Employees?

As an employer, there will be times when you need to give your employees information and carry out consultations with your employees.

As an employer, you have a legal duty to inform and consult with your employees:

• when you are selling your business or buying a new business that is part of your business’ economic activity;
• on health and safety issues; 
• when, during a 90-day timeframe, you make at least 20 redundancies;
• employment contract changes; and
• any TUPE transfer.

If you are a large business that employs at least 50 employees, you might also have to consult your employees concerning any proposed changes to your pension scheme. When your staff ask for an information and consultation agreement, you may have to provide other information to them, including:

• working conditions;
• health and safety; 
• the wellbeing of staff; and
• staffing levels. 

There may be additional occasions when you need to inform and consult your employees. However, you should seek legal advice to clarify when these occasions arise.

How Does an Employer Inform and Consult Employees?

Inform and consulting your employees can take many forms. For example, you can send information via:

• email;
• newsletters;
• team meetings; and 
• intranet bulletins.

However, information and consultation often occur through:

• a workplace group or forum; or 
• an information and consultation agreement. 

Workplace Groups

Workplace groups are a great way to inform your staff about workplace issues and gauge their views and concerns. Holding a workplace forum for informing and consulting your employees can:

• help test out new ideas safely;
• enable quick decisions to be made with less risk of disagreement later;
• increase rapport with your employees; and 
• benefit staffs’ wellbeing and improve their performance.

To maximise the benefits of any workplace group, you should:

• include your employees’ representatives and possibly train one employee in group forums;
• consider a range of options for the issue in question; and 
• use workplace groups to deal with problems which affect many at work rather than individuals.

Information and Consultation Agreements

One of the instances when you may have to consult with your employees is when they ask for an information and consultation agreement. You are under a legal obligation to negotiate this agreement where:

• there are at least 50 employees in your business; and
• at least 15 employees in a business with less than 750 employees, or at least 2% of employees in a business with more than 750 employees, have made a formal information and consultation agreement request.

Additionally, you can create an informational consultation agreement without your employees requesting it where you feel it is necessary. 

Once negotiated, the agreement details what areas you will inform and consult your employees about. However, if you cannot agree to these areas, there are still sound reasons you can inform and consult your employees. This includes:

• your business’ economic circumstances;
• what job prospects your business offers; and 
• any significant changes to how you organise work.

You should note that you are legally obliged to change your information consultation agreement if at least 40% of your workforce makes a request to change it. 

Key Takeaways

It is helpful to inform and consult your employees about issues in the workplace that affect them. This may concern discussing workplace issues or informing and consulting with your employees. Nevertheless, you must ensure that you provide a method for information and consulting.

If you need help understanding informing and consulting employees in England, 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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