Spending quality bonding time with your child undoubtedly has a positive impact on your child and the family unit, however, fitting this around your work schedule can often be a difficult task.

Shared Parental Leave (SPL) is a policy aimed at improving gender equality in the workplace and gives new parents the opportunity to split up to 52 weeks of SPL between them, as well as up to 39 weeks of statutory shared parental pay.

You need to share the pay and leave in the first year after your child is born, or placed with your family if you are adopting. Many parents in the United Kingdom are eligible to take SPL, however SPL’s use is exceptionally low, with research showing that only 2% of eligible couples utilised SPL last year.

What rate is SPL paid at?

The rate of pay (at the time of writing: £151.20 a week or 90% of your average weekly earnings, whichever is lower) is understood to be the main reason behind the scheme’s apparent unpopularity, as few couples can afford the financial implications of taking this leave, especially as having a baby is a particularly expensive life event.

It is suggested that to assist in closing the ‘gender pay gap’, SPL should be raised to help it become a more affordable option for parents who are juggling childcare responsibilities with workplace responsibilities.

Could you do more to promote the use of SPL in your workplace so that employees are aware of the leave on offer to them after having a child?

It is suggested that when undertaking workplace discussions with pregnant employees or expectant fathers, all options for leave and pay are fully disclosed and explored so that the employee has the opportunity to decide whether or not they would like to utilise their shared parental leave. Managers should have good knowledge of the scheme, so they are equipped to answer any employee queries on the subject.

If you need help navigating SPL or any other HR queries, please give us a call on 0161 603 2156 and we will be happy to assist you confidentially.

Lockdown has seen a dramatic rise in homeworking. However, in order to stay operational and fully functioning, there are concerns that employers have been overlooking the health and safety aspect of working from home for their employees.

Occupational health plays a huge part in managing the transition from the workplace to the home workplace, and we will discuss some possible solutions to ensuring the health and safety of your employees whilst working virtually.

Before the pandemic, homeworkers only made up around 5% of the workforce. This is now estimated to be at around 34% of workers according to ONS.

Due to the unexpected nature of the shift to homeworking, businesses have had the sudden need to integrate their systems and processes into the new virtual working world in order to deliver their services.

A downside to this is that many employers have dropped the ball when it comes to ensuring their employees’ welfare is a high priority. A recent survey showed that only 1 in 8 employees have undertaken an employer-led homeworking assessment since workers were ordered to work from home if they can.

Reports show that beds and sofas are the most commonly-used home working spaces, replacing the office desk. It is thought that work-related musculoskeletal injuries will soar in the next year, putting an obligation on employers to undertake a thorough health and safety risk assessment with all employees to ensure they have a safe space to work.

What can I do as an employer to ensure workers’ health and safety at home?

• Communicate with your employees and assist in setting up a homeworking space
• Undertake a risk assessment to identify potential problems and control risks
• Provide the appropriate basics for a homeworker such as furniture and tech
• Host wellbeing calls/virtual meetings for employees to check in on their welfare – working from home can be very isolating
• Ensure adequate rest breaks are being enforced so that employees can separate home and work life

If you need any assistance with managing your homeworkers, please give us a call on 0161 603 2156 for a free, no obligation chat – our friendly team will be happy to assist.

The pandemic is causing a huge downturn in recruitment and an increase in planned redundancies. Over a fifth of businesses have planned redundancies between April-June 2020, reports the Labour Market Outlook.

Over 50% of HR managers who partook in a recent poll admitted plans to furlough employees, and for those already having made use of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, up to 60% of the workforce are thought to become furloughed.

Employers are halting recruitment plans with just 40% making plans to still recruit throughout the pandemic.

Gerwyn Davies of CIPD states that the furlough scheme is responsible for avoiding mass job cuts. He noted ‘the government has heard consistent calls from the CIPD to extend the job retention scheme and make it more flexible at the same time’ and suggests upcoming challenges for the government will be to work alongside employers to strategise plans to enable furloughed staff to work part-time for their employer, and gradually reduce reliance on the wage subsidy before the scheme ends in October.

He suggested workers should prepare for pay cuts and freezes in the upcoming year as businesses try to save jobs. A third of businesses surveyed have admitted to postponing annual pay reviews in 2020.

In response to the pandemic, many businesses are looking to increase homeworking, it is even thought that it may be advised soon by the government as an alternative to going into the workplace for ‘non-essential’ services.

Halting recruitment is also being implemented, which is bound to have a devastating effect on those who are job-seeking as a result of the pandemic.

Introducing new flexible working arrangements as a result of the pandemic could mean a shift to permanent homeworking, which will be welcomed by some, but certainly comes with its challenges.

The labour market will transform as a result of the pandemic, as we adapt to new ways of working.

Although recruitment has fallen, it is positive to note that intentions to make redundancies only modestly increased in comparison with the previous quarter, and it is hoped that as many businesses as possible will make use of the furlough scheme to retain staff and livelihoods.

Despite everyone’s respective political differences, everyone can agree that the recent events in the US have caused outrage and an opportunity for reflection. There are definitely lessons to be learned from the despicable murder of George Floyd; lessons that can be learned both for personal and professional life.

Solidarity must be shown in these dark and uncertain times; awareness must be spread in the workplace around the subject of race.

At CIPD’s recent webinar series on the issue of race in the workplace, Dev Modi, head of inclusive leadership stated “HR can create impact and change in society, and we need to look at how we respond to issues faced by our employees with something practical and tangible.”

During the course of the webinar, Modi outlined the challenges currently being faced as a result of coronavirus and BLM, and offered a range of practical steps to help HR and leaders use the current climate to “rise up” and create genuine, lasting change.

The Relevant Legislation

The Equality Act 2010 provides race as a protected characteristic, meaning it is unlawful to racially discriminate against employees, trainees and job seekers.

“Race” includes nationality, colour and national or ethnic origins under section 9 of the Act. Multiple racial identities are captured in this broad definition including, but not limited to: Black, Black African descent, Black African-Caribbean, and British African.

Examples of discrimination under the Act include:

• direct discrimination: less favourable treatment because of race;
• indirect discrimination: where a provision, criterion or practice places persons of one race at a particular disadvantage when compared to those who are not of that race, and that PCP cannot be justified as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim;
• victimisation: less favourable treatment of an individual because they have made a complaint about race discrimination or have helped someone else to make a complaint about race discrimination; and
• harassment: unwanted conduct related to race which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual.

So how can you, as an employer, take steps to create racial equality for minorities, and dismantle systemic racism?

Positive Steps such as:

Acting swiftly to address any allegations of racism in the workplace and making it clear through policy and procedure that you operate a zero-tolerance ant-discrimination policy;

Communicating that your workplace is a safe environment for difficult conversations;

Supporting/starting racial minority networking groups and including an Ethnicity section in your pay gap report;

Refocusing workplace training programmes to include topics such as race, diversity and inclusion;

Utilising recruitment agencies who recruit diverse talent.

Final Thoughts

There are lots of helpful BLM resources available here https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/black-lives-matter-resources

Remember, even small steps can have positive consequences, it is not an option to not act to stamp out discrimination.

WHAT IS CQC?

The CQC (Care Quality Commission) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. They ensure that health and social care services such as care homes are providing their service users with effective, compassionate, safe and excellent care and they encourage service improvement. They register care providers, monitor, rate and inspect services, and take protective action for service users through advocating for change on major quality issues. The CQC protect vulnerable people’s rights and their values include teamwork, integrity, caring and excellence.

WHEN AND WHY ARE INSPECTIONS HELD?

The CQC undertakes two types of inspections:

COMPREHENSIVE INSPECTIONS which are held regularly to ensure services are providing care that is responsive to people’s needs, effective, caring and safe. They are typically unannounced, although there are circumstances where the provider will be notified beforehand e.g. a small residential service may be contacted 48 hours prior to inspection to check that people are at home or up to a week’s notice may be given to very complicated community services where careful planning is needed.

They are held at the following intervals:

Services Rated as Good And Outstanding – normally within 30 months of the last comprehensive inspection report being published.

Services Rated as Requires Improvement – normally within 12 months of the last comprehensive inspection report being published.

Services Rated as Inadequate – normally within 6 months of the last comprehensive inspection report being published.

Services That Are No Longer Dormant – the first comprehensive inspection will normally be scheduled between 6 to 12 months from the date the service starts operating again.

Newly Registered Services – for brand new services, the first comprehensive inspection will normally be scheduled between 6 to 12 months from the date of registration. If a service was previously operated by another provider, or at a different address, the inspection will be normally be scheduled based on the location’s last inspection report publication date and rating or within 12 months of registration, whichever is the later date. For more information on why and when we continue the regulatory history (report and rating) of a service, see the guidance on our website.

FOCUSED INSPECTIONS are smaller in scale than comprehensive inspections, although they follow a similar process. Focused inspections are carried out either to investigate concerns which have been raised at a comprehensive inspection or if there is a change in a care provider’s circumstances such as a merger, acquisition or takeover.

WHAT IS BEING INSPECTED?

The CQC will focus their inspection on their five key questions based around the welfare of the service user:

1. Is the service user safe, protected from abuse and avoidable harm?
2. Is the care, treatment and support effective, achieving good outcomes and helping the service user to maintain quality of life?
3. Are the staff caring, treating the service user with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect?
4. Is the service well-organised and therefore responsive to people’s needs?
5. Is the service well-led to provide the best quality care that encourages learning and innovation and promotes an open and fair culture?

Each of these five questions above is broken down into more in-depth questions that the CQC refers to as their ‘key lines of enquiry’. This ensures consistency in inspections and ensures that all the key areas are covered.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR CQC INSPECTION

Here are our top tips to prepare for your CQC inspection:

• Implement and utilise a service user feedback form – this ensures we can understand how people experience your service
• Identify a suitable area on your premises that we can undertake document reviews and private conversations in, this could be a room temporarily
• Nominate someone to undertake introductions of inspectors to staff and service users and ensure they are available to accompany the inspector if this is needed
• Ensure you have means of contacting the Registered Manager if they were not around when the inspection takes place
• Consider how you can ensure that your business can continue its usual activities so that care is not disrupted during the inspection
• Ensure staff understand we don’t have the same expectations of understanding and knowledge for all staff members
• Ensure you are ready to produce documentation during the visit – you will be allowed 48 hours to produce these if there is a valid reason they cannot be produced on the day
• Maintain a folder that sets out to staff where they could quickly access information such as health and safety and training records
• Keep your records, such as training records, up to date
• Ensure that service users and staff understand why the inspection is taking place and what to expect (as set out below)

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE INSPECTION?

Stage One

The inspector or inspection team will meet senior staff and explain who they are, the purpose and scope of the inspection, and how findings will be communicated. If acute hospitals or GP services are being inspected, the inspection will begin with a presentation by the care provider in which they will give their own views of their performance.

Stage Two

The key lines of enquiry are explored through:

• Conversing with service users, alone and in groups
• Using information collated from concerns and complaints from service users
• Observing care and focusing on individual care pathways
• Inspecting records and the environment of the care
• Policy and document review

Stage Three

A feedback meeting will be held with senior staff and the inspection team will:

• Summarise the findings of the visit
• Identify any issues that have arisen from the inspection
• Highlight any immediate action that the service provider needs to take immediately
• Outline plans for future visits
• Explain how judgements will be made and published

Areas where the service is excelling or could be improved will be focused on particularly. Please note that inspections vary from service to service however the inspection above is based on a typical visit.

Stage Four

After the inspection, a report is produced by the lead inspector to include ratings which reflect the CQC’s findings and overall judgement of the quality of the care. The report will include what the findings from the key lines of enquiry mean for service users. Pertinent findings, whether positive or negative, will be detailed along with any regulation breaches found. Recommendations will be made to assist the provider in improving their rating.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU FAIL AN INSPECTION?

The service provider will be rated as either Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate, with each of the five key questions having a separate rating.

By law, you have to display the ratings from the CQC in the places you provide the care somewhere that is easily seen. If you have a website, you must display your rating on the website. When you receive your report after the inspection, you must respond to any areas of concern identified during the inspection and create an action plan to improve and address the issues.

The CQC will follow up on action that the service provider has been advised to take. This can be in the form of contact or re-visiting the service to undertake a focused inspection.

If your ratings require improvement, the CQC can:

• Issue requirement notices or warning notices to set out improvements that must be made and a timeframe for this to be implemented
• Change a service provider’s registration which can limit what the service provider may do e.g. imposing conditions for a set timeframe
• Putting a provider in ‘special measures’ where they are closely supervised to assist in improvement of the service in a set timeframe
• Issue cautions, fines and prosecute cases where people are harmed or placed in danger of harm

If you fail an inspection, you should comply immediately with any recommendations for change that have been made. You should follow the advice and guidance set out above and you can seek further guidance here:

https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/cqc_preparing_for_inspection_-_cpa_version_-_final_0.pdf

Following on from our previous article, Coronavirus advice for employers, the rules and advice around Coronavirus has been constantly changing.

The current government advice is:

• Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (where this absolutely cannot be done from home)
• Stay 2 metres away from other people, otherwise known as social distancing
• Avoid busy commuting times on public transport where travel is essential
• Wash your hands as soon as you get home

Vulnerable and high risk employees

For those who come under one of the below categories, employers must take extra steps to protect them:

• Long-term health conditions, for example, asthma, diabetes, heart disease or a weaker immune system as the result of medicines such as steroid tablets or chemotherapy
• Pregnancy
• Aged 70+
• Caring for someone with a health condition that might put them at a greater risk

The government has strongly advised that strict social distancing measures should be taken.

For those who are ‘extremely vulnerable’ due to underlying health conditions (they will have received a letter from the NHS), they have been told to ’shield’ themselves for 12 weeks. If your employee has already been informed or think they may be told to shield, you should support them during this difficult period and adhere to any advice they are given.

Employees who don’t want to go in to work

If an employee doesn’t want to go in to work as they fear they may catch Coronavirus, the employer must try and make reasonable adjustments to diminish this risk. For example, they could introduce flexible working hours for those who travel using public transport so they aren’t travelling at rush hour. Or, for those who can drive, they may offer parking spaces, so they don’t have to take public transport.

If the employee refuses to go in to work, the employer may suggest them taking unpaid leave. Disciplinary action is to be taken as a last resort.

Discrimination

Employees are protected by the law from day 1 of their employment for unfair treatment and dismissal because of:

• Pregnancy
• Age
• Disability (some health conditions are covered)

It can be considered unlawful discrimination to force an employee in one of the above categories to:

• Unreasonably force someone to go to work
• Unreasonably discipline someone for not going to work

It is important to take this into account when considering whether employees need to come into work.

Pay

The government announced on 20^th March that they will pay up to 80% of employees’ wages who aren’t able to work due to Coronavirus.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that for those employees that are kept on by their employers, they will have up to £2,500 a month covered by the government. This was implemented to reduce the number of jobs that would be lost.

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

Employees are eligible to SSP from day one of their absence from work.

For the first 7 days off work, employees can self-certify so they don’t need to provide any evidence for their employer. After that, employers may ask for evidence of sickness absence.

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)

If an employee has a disability or health condition that affects how much they can work, they are able to apply for ESA which gives them money to help with living costs if they can’t work, and support to get back into work if they’re able to. This applies to those who are employed, self-employed or unemployed.

School closures

All schools are now closed in England, Scotland and Wales, apart from the teaching of children of key workers.

If employees require emergency time off for childcare or to make new arrangements, they can use time off for dependants or holiday entitlement (if the employer is in agreement).

Employers may consider offering flexible working to support those affected, e.g. working from home or altering working hours for childcare.

There should be regular contact between the employer and employee to ensure time off or the changing of working hours can be planned ahead.

Working from home

Employers should encourage their employees to work from home wherever possible. They should be given support to do so, which may include ordering extra equipment.

If your employees are working from home, as an employer, you should pay them as normal. You should have regular contact with them and check on their mental health and wellbeing.

Below are just a few suggestions that employers can share with employees to ensure a happy and productive workforce:

• Start your day as if you were going to work, get up, get dressed and have your breakfast ready to start the day.
• Make sure you have a quiet place to work so you can concentrate. Don’t multi-task and watch the TV while working, not only because you need to maintain a professional environment while talking to clients or customers, but you need to focus on what you’re doing just like you would when you’re in the office.
• Make sure you have a lunch period to take a break from your laptop. Chat to friends, read a book whatever you’d like to do to clear your head for the afternoon.
• While temporarily working from home you’ll save time not travelling to work. So why not add extra activities into your day improve your fitness, get your ironing done, practice mindfulness or various other activities and try not to overdo it on the carbs.
• Make sure at the end of the day you have an end of day ritual to mark that you have worked hard and finished for the day. Log off, chat to your friends (over the phone or video call), play with your kids or pets and chill out.

It is a very dynamic environment currently, and it is important to keep a check on government rules and regulations. If you require any further information or updates, get in touch with our Employment Law team at [email protected].