Employment Practices and Regulations - Coursework Example

Running Head: Employment Practices Regulation Employment Practices Regulation Customer’s Name: Customer’s Course: Tutor’s Name: Date of submission: Introduction Businesses trade with the main aim being of making profits and maximizing the shareholders wealth. For this reason, all the company resources and operation must be directed towards attainment of the master objects of profit making. The profit making aim is dependent on levels of production not forgetting the quality of the company’s goods and services. With high production of goods and services, a company is bound to have high sales and that will consequently reflect high revenue. For optimal quality production, full employment of resources must be adhered to. Full employment of resources means maximizing usage in all available resources be it raw materials, intermediate products or human labour i.e. factors of production. All these resources must be managed in such a way that there are no wastages in materials and neither are the workers idle. Proper or efficient employment of resources is all dependent on human efficiency to ensure that there are no wastages, workers don’t stay idle and quality products and services are produced. This has created the need for people management at work. On the other hand, the welfare of employees is an issue of concern. Employment practices have therefore been required to be put in the light (Selwyn, 2010). This is because employees’ welfare under management has raised an alarm following the neglecting and abandonment of employees rights in their place of work. Cases of employee’s rights abandonment and mistreatment by employers have been heard more frequently from time to time from one company to another. The government through the act of parliament has therefore seen the need to regulate the employment practices. The act of parliament has made legislations on employment practices to bring fairness on both employers and employees such that employees as resources yield high production under comfortable environment in terms of fair treatment by employers, healthy and safe working standards (Selwyn, 2010). Employment Practices and Regulations The employment practices regulation as said above has been usually done through the legislation of employment law. The legislations are enacted to provide space for employer’s achievement of their profit maximization goals by fair means of motivating, inspiration and encouragement together with fair remuneration and not through unfair or unjust treatment of the employees. The United Kingdom has not ragged behind in the protection of both employers’ rights and employees’ rights. For that reason, United Kingdom among other states has put into place the law of employment. With time, the employment law has been severally reviewed. This is because of the emerging issues in employment in regard to conflicts between the employers and the employees. The employment law addresses a number of issues in regard to the legal relation of employers and employees. The issues are outlined in the Acts contained in the law as stipulated in the states constitution (Selwyn, 2010). Minimal wages, Equality Act, Job security, Collective bargaining, Health and safety not forgetting the disciplinary actions and procedures under each are the major issues in the law with each stipulated in form of an Act. The law has set minimal standards in regard to the salaries and wages of employees; this is well known as the national minimum wage. The minimum wage concept is applied concurrently with the working hours. Maximum working hours are stipulated together with the compulsory leave and the payment relation to the leaves. Consequently, the rate in payment of extra or overtime hours worked is also catered for. In cases where the employee is denied the minimum pay rate, he can claim it in a tribunal. Following the issue on minimum wages and hours worked, the issue of job security raises an alarm. The employment law has not bended on any side but for its main concern is equality and justice. For this reason, employers retain the right to hire and fire workers in a justified manner. The employment law has therefore focussed on the issue of unfair hiring and firing practice. Issues discussed in the protection of employment or job security are dismissal either wrongful or unfair and dismissal due to redundancy. It is clear that the case of wrongful and unfair dismissal mainly protects the dismissed employee who has the burden of proof that the reason towards his or her dismissal was either wrong or else unfair (Selwyn, 2010). The employers may have reasons which are not weighted for dismissal or else not justified enough. This happens when the employer gives vague reasons to ensure that an employee is fired. These will be regarded as unjust dismissal which according to the law the employer will be held liable upon satisfaction that the employer was unjust in the dismissal. On the other hand, the employer might use an unfair reason which he justifies as a basis to force out the employee. This means that the employer poaches for a chance such that he becomes an opportunist to use reasons such as a sick day off to dismiss the employee. Though the employer might fight his way out to give a valid reason for dismissal, he might later not follow the necessary procedures of dismissal. This will be depriving off the employee’s rights under dismissal which will be pose liability to the employer for wrong dismissal of the employee. Concurrently, with the intention to dismiss a person, the employer may act to impliedly give a message of forceful unfair dismissal. This is the case where the employee resigns out of employer’s behaviour and altitude such as falsely accusing the employee on defaults and inefficiency, harassment and humiliation together with extensive disciplinary actions on negligible matters (Painter & Holmes, 2010). Under wrongful dismissal, the terms in the employment contract is very crucial and may be used by the employee over the employer for breach of contract or bending the contractual terms which leads to the constructive or forceful dismissal. Unfair dismissal is subject to claims in a tribunal. Employers have therefore tried to come out with other methods of dismissal in order to escape the cases of wrongful or unfair dismissal. The employers have therefore dismissed employees under the claim of redundancy which leaves the burden of proof that the employee’s labour is no longer necessary in the organization to them. In the eyes of the law, dismissal under redundancy is quite a fair reason for dismissal but is eventually accompanied with a redundancy payment to the employee. Contractual terms are also of essence in the dismissal under redundancy claim. If the employer is able to proof redundancy, then it would be quite a fair dismissal favouring the employer (Painter & Holmes, 2010). The employment law does not favour any side as its aim is to ensure justice, equality and fairness. For this reason, the employee’s behaviour is also overlooked and regulated. Any misconduct by an employee might automatically amount to dismissal. Misconduct of employee’s is basically the unethical actions such as use of drugs, violence, sexual related behaviours and stealing. The law does not protect such persons from dismissal. This is quite fair to the employers. In regard to protection of employment, the issue of business transfers in mergers, amalgamation and take-overs is an area of concern. The employees need to know whether their employment will still stand even after occurrence of such events. The questions asked are; will the new employer retain me? Will there be any change in my remuneration? And if not retained, who will claim for dismissal? The employment law therefore comes into place to cater for such putting into place that if the previous employee will claim dismissal from the previous employer. In such cases of mergers and amalgamations, the contract law will take place and if there is any renewal of any form either impliedly or expressly, the incoming employer will handle the claim. The safeguarding of the employees’ employment doesn’t give unfair burden to the employers but places justice for the employees. Employment law has also regulations towards equality and discrimination of employees. The equality Act takes an essential place in the preservation of human rights and in specific, the employees’ rights against discrimination and other inequalities. The issue on discrimination and inequality lies under distinguished basis (Painter & Holmes, 2010). For instance, gender may become a basis of discrimination. This is where the employer gives preferential treatment on one gender against the other. This discrimination lies under salary where one gender is favoured in terms of remuneration search that the employees of the preferred gender is positively discriminated and awarded a higher remuneration than the other. The same case applies to where employees of a certain gender are accorded better working conditions than the other and moreover having better contractual terms in employment. The employees discriminated against are said to be negatively discriminated. Race and colour has been another common basis for discrimination in organization. The law of employment does not discriminate on the employees in regard to any basis and thus protects all employees either citizens or aliens. Therefore, any discrimination on such basis will be against the law on will pose liability on such employers. The citizenship of the employee will not matter as long as he is an employee of the subject organization. Disability has been another basis for discrimination, where employers with disability tend to be discriminated against and mistreated. Their efforts tend to be unnoticed and thus discriminated even towards promotion and remuneration (Painter & Holmes, 2010). Another common basis of discrimination and inequality is the religion. The religion case has not only been seen in employment practice but also in other areas such as immigration. For this reason, the UK government among other states has included the regulation on such discrimination in the employment law to honour the rights of the employees in regard to freedom of worship and religion as long as the religion is not a cult. The common discriminations heard are between the main religions of Christians and Muslims not leaving behind the Hindu religion (Kidner, 2011). Age and family background has also been seen as basis of discrimination and thus catered for in the employment law. Discrimination and inequality has also gone concurrently with harassment and mistreatment by the employers. Justice against discrimination does not therefore mean unfair burdening of the employer. Pregnancy has been another basis for discrimination. Employers happen to discriminate pregnant ladies by unfair maternity leave and poor working conditions. This is also the case in regard to leaves for child care. The law of employment caters for such leaves and working conditions. The UK government has given reimbursements on employers when employees are given leave for child care. This will not be unfairly burdening of the employers but instead ensuring fair treatment on employees. Another major area covered in the employment law is the health and safety standards in the working environment. The employment law has set standards that each employer in regard to health and safety has to comply with. The law has enforced that employers should be involved in the contribution towards healthy and safe environment. The involvement of the employees in such discussion goes along with collective bargaining (Kidner, 2011). The employees will together demand for negotiations if any concern about health and safety standards arises. The employment law has topped up on the concern of health and safety standards with regulation on health insurance on workers. This is different with the insurance on income protection which is concerned with the sustenance of income at times when the employee will be unable to generate income. This is summed up together well in the presence of trade unions where if there concerns are not catered for, they may resolve to call for industrial action, strikes or go-slows. The law allows such action but recommend that the issues should be first addressed internally even before the employees take such action or take the claim to an employment tribunal (Kidner, 2011). If a contradiction arises between the contractual terms and the employment law in regard to employees’ rights, then the employment law prevails. Tax and insurance issues have been other in the employment law. The issues pointed out are basically towards the employers’ duties or responsibility. Employers’ are responsible towards the tax department in the collection of income taxes of the employees and remitting them in due time. This is part of the regulation in employment though it is not expounded in a larger form in the employment law. In regard to insurance, the employer has a responsibility to insure the employees on health policies (Cunningham & Reed 2009). This is to take care of the employees’ health in cases of accidents or infection from the organization environment. Concurrently, the insurance goes along with income protection and employees’ pension schemes. The employers are bound to contribute towards the income sustenance in occurrence of employees’ redundancy, old age and retirement. Employees’ therefore have income protection policies, pension schemes and other policies such as payment protection insurance that the law demands employers’ contribution. All this is to ensure survival even after retirement or unemployment due to being fired or resignation. At times, this can be felt as an unfair burden on the employers. A major regulatory area of employment practices is the criminal liability under employee’s actions that is placed on the employer. The law of tort and the law of agency have in a larger extent regulated the employment practices under such accounts. In the law of agency, the liability borne by the principle for the acts of the agent is known as vicarious liability. Therefore, when an employee’s action amounts to liability, it need not fall on him if he was course of executing the laid out duties by the employer (Munday, 2010). The vicarious liability therefore falls on any third party to the action that had influence or control over the violator. This is because the law states that he who acts through another, acts in his or her own interest. If the employee happens to act in a criminal way during his course of employment or work, the employer who gave directives to the action will instead be liable. In this case, the employer is held as the principle and the employee as the agent. The vicarious liability under employment is based on employee’s action during work but not actions such as battery or assault. For these reason, the employer’s vicarious liability need be regulated. The contractual terms also determines the level of such liability. In a case where the employee is an independent contractor, the liability of either criminal or a tort falls on the employee himself and not on the employer. In company law, a company is an artificial person which can sue and be sued. Being an artificial person, it does therefore act through the directors. In this case, the company assumes the principle and the directors assume agents and thus any criminal offence under tort is subjected to the company. In cases where the employee never took the duty of care, the employer can be indemnified by suing the employee. The vicarious liability concept is an important concept as it safeguards the extent of liability on employees (Munday, 2010). On the other hand, the law of employment has made it obligatory for every organization to insure against employees’ claim. The employer must therefore obtain an insurance policy in regard to the claims by the employees. The insurance policy is known as the employer’s liability insurance and commonly referred to as the employers insurance. This brings equality between the employee and the employer in regard to the requests of the two. The human resource department has always been the main area of employee-employer conflict. While the organization is working towards yielding maximum revenue or profits by ensuring full employment of resources, the HR department works towards yielding the maximum from the labourers who in this case are employees. For that reason, the employees are taken as resources rather than as human beings with personality. The human resource managers lack to take into account the affection on human personalities (Torrington, Taylor, & Hall, 2007). The HR department therefore creates the foundation or the centre of all the conflicts between the employers and the employees. Like the other resources as land, raw materials and intermediate products, human resources well referred to as labour are subjected to maximum usage possible. The HRM is interested with complete and efficient resources such that there are no wastages and neither are there any labourers idle. As raw materials are used exhaustively, HRM tend to use human resource until they refer to the employees redundant. The exhaustive use of resources is subjected to low costs. All these HR practices result in the conflicts in hiring and firing, poor remuneration and minimum wage, working hours, redundancy and job insecurity among others (Torrington, Taylor & Hall, 2007). The employment law has recommended that employees should first put the claims to the employers internally either as a group or as an individual. If the claim is not catered for, the employee should forward the same to an employment tribunal using the respective trade union. The employment tribunal acts as the floor for conflicts settlement which has not been settled internally (Cunningham & Reed 2009). The first step taken by the tribunal after a case is presented to them is thorough investigation. All facts regarding the case at hand are collected from all available resources. The two parties of the case i.e. the employer and the employee are asked to give their statements subject to inspection. Witnesses are also required to give their side of the story that are collected from both sides. The collected facts are then submitted to the culprit or the defendant depending who claims. The employees are allowed to have the accompaniment of his respective trade union representatives during the whole tribunal process. After the culprit reads the written report of the investigation, a disciplinary hearing is called or summoned. The defendant is granted a chance to give his side of the story before the adjournment of the tribunal waiting for the final conclusion. Lastly but not the least, the conclusion is given and the aggrieved party is granted a room to place an appeal to the tribunal. If no appeal is made, then the conclusion previously made upholds. If any, the case is overheard again only if the basis of the appeal is considered material (Cunningham & Reed 2009). Conclusion Employers will always work with the aim of making a profit and together with the HR managers, they will always work to minimise the cost associated with production. Often, the employees’ rights will be violated. For this reason, the government through the act of parliament has enacted the laws to preserve and regulate the employment practices to safeguard employees’ rights and create equity, justice and fairness to both the employers and the employees and not necessarily posting an unfair burden to the employees. References Cunningham, N & Reed, M (2009). Employment Tribunal Claims: Tactics and Precedents. Scotland. Legal Action Group. Kidner, R. (2011). Blackstone's Statutes on Employment Law 2011-2012 (Blackstone's Statute Series). United Kingdom. Oxford. Munday, R. (2010). Agency: Law and Principles. United Kingdom. Oxford. Painter, R & Holmes, A. (2010). Cases and Materials on Employment Law. United Kingdom. Oxford. Selwyn, N. (2010). Selwyn's Law of Employment. United Kingdom. Oxford. Torrington, D, Taylor, S & Hall, L. (2007). Human Resource Management. New Jersey. Prentice Hall. Read More