How employers can stay ahead in 2019

Upheaval in the employment law landscape is a theme that looks set to continue in 2019. Here’s some of the major changes you need to be prepared for.

By Helen Darbyshire, HR advisor at Harrison Drury

Minimum Wage and Living Wage increases

In April, we’ll see increases to the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW).  Those aged over 25 will see an increase in the NLW from £7.83 to £8.21.

Meanwhile, there’ll be increases in the NMW to £7.70, £6.15 and £4.35 for those in the 21 to 24, 18 to 20 and under-16 age groups respectively.

Working time regulations

A decision is expected soon by the Supreme Court on whether NMW payments should be made for those employees doing ‘sleep-in shifts’.

Employers that require workers and employees to undertake such shifts should consider the cost and resourcing implications.

On the subject of working hours, from 6th April 2019 workers (as well as employees) will have the right to a payslip that includes total number of hours worked.   

Termination payments

There will also be changes to termination payments and the National Insurance payments connected with them.

Anyone contemplating such payments should be very clear about the tax treatment and how the payments will be dealt with in settlement discussions.

Auto-enrolment pension contributions

Also coming in April, employer and employee auto-enrolment pension contributions will climb from 2 per cent to 3 per cent.

Gender and executive pay gaps

In the drive to provide clarity and consistency on pay, companies with more than 250 employees are obliged to publish their gender pay gap reports by 4th April.

Further legislation is expected on executive pay, again with companies of more than 250 people expected to publish executive pay gaps in the same way as they do for gender.

Settled status for EU nationals

European workers living in the UK will be able to apply for settled status in 2019 so they can remain indefinitely after the Brexit transition process.

To qualify they will need to be able to evidence they’ve been living in the UK for five years at the time of their application.

The upshot of this is that businesses employing European nationals need to look carefully at their resourcing.

Micro-chipping of employees

Although this may seem like something way in the future, case law is already developing around microchipping of employees during working hours. It will be interesting to see how the courts rule given the changes which GDPR has brought and the potential invasion of privacy. It’s easy to be caught out by these employment law changes, so it’s wise to plan now for how they will impact your business.