HR News

The period of incapacity that triggers an employer’s duty to report workplace injuries will increase from 3 to 7 days from 6 April 2012 as will the period within which the employer has to make that report, up from 10 to 15 days.

Facebook’s Timeline interface is currently been rolled out across all users whether they want it or not. Kim Walker, Data Protection Partner for law firm Thomas Eggar LLP, comments on the privacy implications of this for job seekers, employers and employees.

A revised staging timetable for pensions auto-enrolment has been published by the DWP. This follows the announcement in November 2011 that smaller employers were to get more time to prepare. Under the revised timetable, there will be no change to the staging dates of employers with 250 or more employees. All existing companies, regardless of size will have to have introduced auto-enrolment by April 2017, with any new companies by February 2018. See LawTracker and the Checklist – Automatic Enrolment and NEST for more details.

The government is to press ahead with reforms to executive pay. Announcing the new package of reforms Vince Cable said: ‘We cannot accept directors’ pay rising five times greater than average workers’ pay as happened last year ... there is evidence of a clear market failure’.

The planned increase in parental leave to 18 weeks will not be implemented by March 2012. BIS has confirmed that it plans to take advantage of the year’s grace allowed for in the Parental Leave Directive for those member states experiencing ‘particular difficulties’ (in this case, the on-going Modern Workplaces policy development). The increase in the existing right to unpaid parental leave from 13 weeks to 18 weeks per parent per child will now be brought into force in March 2013. Parental leave rights will be incorporated into the proposed new system of flexible parental leave expected to be operational by 2015. See LawTracker for further details.