When you hear the term employment law you might think that's a bit boring not a bit of me i'm
not interested, but it's so important that you understand it it impacts businesses, you, me,
everybody, everybody who's employed or employs people is impacted by employment law. In this
video I'm going to tell you lots about employment law and how it impacts you and businesses.
Now, employment law can be complex as it's made up of lots of little pieces of government legislation
but it's designed to protect employees from exploitation in the workplace and when it's broken
down employment law is based on four key areas which form the basis of employee rights in the uk.
These are: recruitment, pay, discrimination, and health and safety and in this video I'm going to
give you an overview of all four of these key areas and how legislation around employment
impacts both employers and employees in the uk. So first up it's recruitment, when businesses are
looking to recruit, employment law sets the standard, it guides businesses on what they can and cannot
do when they're looking to recruit new employees and what they can and cannot do with their current
employees. The key pieces of legislation that are involved in recruitment are the Equality Act (2010),
this ensures that businesses treat all potential applicants and current employees fairly and do not
discriminate. This applies to the whole recruitment process right from the way that the job advert
is written to the way that the job advert is publicised, so who and who cannot access and apply
through to the interview and selection process. The Data Protection Act (2018) is also very important as
it guides businesses on the types of personal information that they can and cannot collect
from candidates and employees. And the third key piece of legislation which impacts recruitment
is the Employment Rights Act (1996) which is in place to ensure that all successful applicants
receive a formal written document or statement which contains all the key information about
their new role and their responsibilities. This includes information such as the job title, the
job description, the rates of pay, and who they might report too. In addition to this employment law
also guides businesses on how to treat employees who are going to be absent from the workplace
whether this be through sickness or having a child. For example employment law guides the business and
sets the minimum standard of treatment for that employee and once the business has been successful
in its recruitment process, employment law then guides it on the types of checks that it must
carry out on this successful applicant. For example if the role involved working with young children
let's say a teacher, then the school are required to complete a DBS check to ensure the successful
candidate has got no criminal convictions and they are safe to work with children. So we've
talked a lot about recruitment so far but that's just one of the four key areas of employment law
so we're going to move on now to pay and when it comes to pay, employment law plays a huge
role in the amount that you are paid in your role. This is because a piece of legislation named the
national minimum wage act 1998 sets the minimum amount of money that any employee should be paid.
When working in the UK this minimum amount of money acts as a benchmark that's a minimum that
any business has got to pay its employees and in the UK there are three key strands to this
piece of legislation which impact how much you and anybody else will be paid. These are the
apprenticeship wage which applies to apprentices and currently in 2022 this is four pound eight
to one an hour the national minimum wage which applies to anybody up to the age of 22 and ranges
from four pound eighty one to nine pound eighteen per hour depending on the age of the employee and
then you've got the national living wage which applies to anybody who's 23 and above and this
is currently 9.50 an hour. But importantly these rates of pay are reviewed yearly by the government
so it's crucial that businesses don't miss any changes to these minimum wage requirements and
find themselves breaking the law. Now while we're on the topic of pay the Equality Act (2010) comes
into play again, making it illegal to pay employees who are deemed to be in the same or similar role
different rates of pay which is just another key point that businesses and employers need to be
aware of when deciding how much they're going to pay their employees to ensure that they don't get
in trouble, they don't upset their employees, and ultimately don't end up in court. For example, if
a man and a woman were doing exactly the same role they should be on the same pay scales
it's as simple as that. We now move on to discrimination which I've already mentioned quite
a few times but that's because it's a pivotal part of employment law. Essentially employment
law is designed to make sure that everybody is treated fairly and nobody is discriminated against
and to make it clear on how employees are typically discriminated against there's nine
protected characteristics which employers should be aware of and they should be very careful not
to discriminate or treat someone unfairly because of any one of these nine protected characteristics.
These nine protected characteristics are: age, gender reassignment, being married or in a civil
partnership, being pregnant or on maternity leave, disability, race, religion or belief, sex,
and sexual orientation. For example a business cannot refuse to give a job to a candidate
because they find out that they are pregnant nor can a business discriminate against an employee or
an applicant because they've got a disability. In fact businesses have a legal requirement to ensure
that they've got adequate provisions in place to support candidates or employees who are disabled
to ensure that all employees have equal access to employment regardless of their
disability. We now move on to the final key area of employment law which centres around health
and safety. So another reason why employment law exists is to ensure that the workplace is safe
and to ensure employees are safe in the workplace. A number of key legislations are there to guide
businesses to prepare a safe working environment for all of their employees. One of the most
important pieces of legislation when it comes to health and safety is the health and safety work
act (1974). This act sets out the general duties employers have to members of the general public
and to their employees but it also sets out the general duties that employees have to themselves
and to each other. For example to provide a safe working environment employers are expected to
deliver staff training around health and safety in the workplace, provide and maintain suitable tools
for the job and PPE to protect employees, report any serious accidents to the HSE,
and it even goes as far as providing employees with the basics such as toilets, running water, and
washing facilities. Then if we switch this on its head and look at what employees are expected to do
they are expected to complete all mandatory training set by their employer, ensure they are using
the PPE and safety equipment provided at all times, as well as using the correct tools for the
job and employees should also take responsibility for their own safety in the workplace and if they
identify any risk whatsoever they should report it straight away to their employer. And the final
key piece of legislation that i'm going to cover in this video is a working time regulations (1998).
Now this is a key part of employment law and is designed to keep the workplace as safe as possible
and to reduce risk. This is essentially achieved by ensuring that workers aren't overworked by
providing strict guidelines around working hours, breaks, and paid leave that employers must follow.
For example the working time regulation states the maximum amount of hours that an employee can
work in most circumstances is currently an average of 48 hours a week, employees are legally entitled
to a 20-minute break if they're working more than six hours, and employees are entitled to a minimum
of 5.6 weeks of paid leave per year. Now imagine if this regulation wasn't in place, now i'm not saying
every employer would do it and every business would do it but do you think you would get as
many breaks? Would you get as much paid leave? Would you get sick pay? Would you have to work more than
48 hours? It's a good question to ask and imagine if you did work 70 hours you didn't get sick leave,
you didn't get holiday pay, you didn't get breaks while you're on shift, what would happen to you? You
are likely to get very tired, very overworked, you'll lose your focus, the quality would go down, and risk
would go up and most likely so would accidents. And that's it, a quick guide to employment law and
its purpose in business. I hope that's helped you understand how it impacts businesses as employers
and also people as employees. If you found the video helpful don't forget to smash that like
button and subscribe to Two Teachers YouTube channel for lots more business videos just like this!