The employment appeal Tribunal has held that a disabled employee who received a warning for taking 60 days sickness absence suffered unlawful discrimination. Why? Background facts Mrs O Connor (O) commenced work with DL Insurance services (DL) in June 2005. O had a customer support role which involved her speaking to customers on the phone. According to the case reports, … Read More
Making wage deductions for the cost of training
When an employee leaves employment, you might wish to recover the cost of any external training they recently undertook. When are you legally able to recoup training costs and can you do this by making deductions from the employee’s final salary payment? Training Investment If you invest in external training for employees and are worried they may leave you as … Read More
Festive opening hours
We’d like to take the opportunity to thank all customers for their support throughout 2018. Our opening hours over the festive period are as follows: Monday 24th December – 12.30pm close Thursday 27th December – Normal Hours Friday 28th December – Normal Hours Monday 31st December – 3pm close Wednesday 2nd January – Normal Hours resume If you require assistance … Read More
Smacked in the face by a stegosaurus
I’m not sure how many will be able to directly relate to the trigger for this story, but I was recently smacked in the face by a stegosaurus, and to make matters worse it was my fault, I would even go so far as to say I asked for it to happen, it was an unanticipated consequence of poor communication. … Read More
Setting a limit for diesel exhaust emissions
The European Parliament has announced that an agreement has been reached to set workplace exposure limits for diesel engine exhaust emissions and five additional carcinogens: trichloroethylene, 4,4-methylenedianiline, epichlorohydrine, ethylene dibromide and ethylene dichloride. Currently diesel exhaust emissions are considered to be hazardous to health and the HSE recommends that employers have in place suitable control measures to minimise exposure, however … Read More
MOT reminder service extended to lorries and busses
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) have announced that their MOT reminder service for cars and bikes has now been extended to include lorries, buses and lorry trailers. To sign up for the service you will need the vehicle’s registration number and a mobile phone number of email address. For cars and bikes you will get a reminder one … Read More
Lets talk about stress
Latest statistics released by the HSE show that around 595,000 workers were reported to be suffering from work related stress, depression or anxiety in 2017/18, leading to 15.54 million lost working days. This represents over half of all working days lost due to ill health. The main sources of stress, anxiety or depression were identified as workload (44% of cases), … Read More
Fewer prosecutions; bigger fines
The latest figures released by the HSE show that a verdict was reached in 517 cases prosecuted by the HSE (or the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland) in 2017/18 a fall from 612 cases in 2016/17. Of those cases a conviction for at least one offence was reached in 493 (95% of cases) leading to £72.6million in fines … Read More
Discovering safety
The HSE and the University of Manchester are starting work on an ambitious new programme called Discovering Safety. The programme aims to use using new insights from data and novel analytical techniques to improve health and safety on a global scale through education, practical improvement initiatives and commercial tools and services. Phase 1 of the programme is about to start … Read More
Counting the cost of injury and ill health
Latest statistics released by the HSE show that the annual cost of work related injury and new cases of ill health in Britain was £15 billion of this approximately £9.7billion related to new cases of work related ill health. This annual cost has been broadly level since 2009/10. The two most common types of work related ill health were musculoskeletal … Read More