New Immigration Act Rules Now in Force

On 12 July 2016 new legislation on employing illegal workers came into force. According to the Immigration Act 2016, if a worker is found to be in the UK illegally, the government no longer has to prove that the employer knew about it. If this were to happen in your business, you could be prosecuted if you had ‘reasonable cause to believe that the employee is disqualified from employment’ because of being in the country illegally.

New Powers and Penalties

The Act also gives Immigration Officers the power to search your premises, and seize any incriminating evidence of this kind of wrong doing. It doesn’t matter whether the work is being performed under a written contract or just an oral one; the offence of employing an illegal immigrant is the same.

Penalties are more severe as well. Fines are heavy and you could go to prison for up to five years. Previously the maximum custodial sentence was two years. The workers themselves can now be prosecuted as well, and face imprisonment for up to six months.

Enforcing Worker Standards

The Act is also concerned about the conditions of legally employed workers. A new post of Director of Labour Market Enforcement has been created, whose role is to oversee the enforcement of the national minimum wage and other minimum standards for workers.

With all these new rules upon us, all employers need to be even more vigilant with their recruiting practices. If you are not 100% certain of their legal status, it’s not worth taking them on.

What Else Is to Come?

Other aspects of the Act have yet to come into force, and have no projected date as yet, but are worth noting and looking out for.

These are:

·         A power to close down premises for a maximum of 48 hours if illegal immigrants are found working there

·         A new rule that public sector workers who deal directly with the public must be fluent in English. In Wales the rule also includes the Welsh language

·         An immigration skills charge which will be imposed on employers who sponsor Tier 2 skilled migrant workers i.e. if you want to offer a job to someone from overseas with skills you cannot find otherwise.

You might want to ask your local bookkeepers to watch out for the enforcement dates of those regulations to come. They will be delighted to help keep you up to date.

Carrying Over Annual Leave – What you Need to Know as an Employer

As an employer you will be aware that you are obliged to give your staff 5.6 weeks annual leave, or the appropriate proportion of that for part-time personnel. You can, of course, offer more than that if you want to offer a really attractive contract and compete with other companies to gain and retain a loyal and motivated team.

More Complicated Aspects

As an entrepreneur who has to cover all bases, you may find the rules on when annual leave can be carried over from one year to another somewhat fuzzy and a level of detail too far – until a situation arises when you need to know.

Did you know that only 1.6 weeks of annual leave can be carried over at your discretion, and written into the employment contract, and why that is the case? This is because that 1.6 weeks has nothing to do with EU rules. It is awarded under UK law which allows it to be carried over.

The other 4 weeks, or 28 days, are awarded under the EU’s Working Time Regulations 1998, and they cannot be carried over under normal circumstances. If you offer additional contractual leave, you need to make it clear in the written contact whether you allow this leave to be carried over.

The Out of the Ordinary

Sometimes of course, there are exceptional circumstances why annual leave cannot be taken before the end of the leave year. The most common of these is sickness. If someone develops a serious illness or has an accident that means they have to take sick leave, they may not be able to take their annual leave in time but be in need of it at a later date. In a number of court cases applying EU law, employees have been allowed to take some or all of their EU leave from a previous year.

Other exceptional circumstances can arise because of the nature of the work and whether other staff members are available, as well as the personal circumstances of the personnel concerned. Your policy on carrying over contractual leave in these kind of circumstances should be made clear in your employment contracts, otherwise it will be necessary to have a written agreement signed by yourself and the employee for each individual occasion.

While you have a certain amount of leeway in your policies on taking leave in exceptional circumstances, it is important to know the rules of law. Clearly you would be wise to write all your leave policies into your staff contracts, so that no-one can claim to be unfairly treated and everyone knows where they stand. If you are not sure you have covered everything, your local bookkeepers would be happy to take a look at the draft and give you their opinion.

How Flexible Working Makes Businesses Attractive to Employees

When you are considering the type of people you want to join your business, and how to attract them, you would do well to look at your working practices, especially if you are competing for a small pool of good people.

How to Get them on Board

Naturally you demonstrate your own passion for what you are doing and hope to motivate the same in them. Alongside this, and the attractive pay package, sits the way you operate and will expect them to perform.

Recent research by Regus, the major international player in business services, indicates the need to offer flexible working conditions to attract and retain the best personnel. Of their survey of 3,000 professionals, 90% said that if everything else about two positions was equal, they would go for the one that had the most flexible working options.

Richard Morris, Chief Executive of Regus UK, said that these days flexibility is not looked on as a perk – it is seen as more of a right. It has become “a key differentiator for talented individuals”.

The Retention Factor

Almost a third of respondents in the survey also said they would not have left their previous position when they did if working hours and conditions had been more flexible. Clearly, if you value your people, it would pay to make their workplace setup and hours as flexible as possible. Entrepreneurs need to have hard working people they can trust to remain in place or progress through the business. You don’t need the expense and hassle of the recruitment process every year.

According to Richard Morris, “A flexible role is one where the individual has more control over where and when they are productive. Managers must get better at measuring on results rather than on time spent at a specified desk … There is also the current business climate to consider. The economic uncertainty requires business to be more agile and nimble so operating with a fluid and flexible workforce, using available workspace, makes real commercial sense…”

If you think it’s time to make changes to accommodate all this, you could discuss it with your local bookkeepers. They will most likely have experienced a variety of ways in which companies have made flexible conditions work for them, so they can warn you of pitfalls and advise on how to avoid or negotiate them.