The introduction of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) has led to a surprising, positive impact on the environment, according to Jet Global. GDPR is an EU regulation that was enforced in 2018. The legal framework was created to protect EU citizens, strengthening their rights and giving users more control over their online data. The creation of the act also means that the data protection laws in EU member states are now identical. Since the launch of GDPR in May 2018, says Jet Global, we have seen the predicted outcomes as well as unexp... Continue reading

The Court of Appeal has upheld the ruling that ASDA store staff can compare their roles with those in the supermarket giant’s distribution centres in legal claims over equal pay, law firm Leigh Day has reported. The judgment is a major step forward in the fair pay battle on behalf of tens of thousands of store workers who had already won in the Employment Tribunal (ET) and Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against ASDA’s attempts to block their legal claims. The Wal-Mart owned supermarket chain appealed the two previous rulings they lost, ... Continue reading

Employers want greater flexibility in how they can spend their apprenticeship levy funds, with the current ‘one-size fits all’ approach limiting uptake and investment, according to new research by City & Guilds Group. Ahead of the planned consultation with businesses and others involved in apprenticeships, City & Guilds Group is calling on government to really listen to employers and help remove barriers to enable businesses to make full use of apprenticeships as the vital skills solution they are intended to be. Within its report, Flex f... Continue reading

The Flexible Working Task Force, a partnership across government departments, business groups, trade unions and charities, has launched a campaign to increase the uptake of flexible working. Members of the task force are collectively using their ability to reach and influence hundreds of thousands of employers to encourage them to advertise jobs as flexible by using the strapline ‘Happy to Talk Flexible Working’ in their job advertisements, regardless of level or pay grade. All members of the taskforce, co-chaired by the Department for Bu... Continue reading

Unless key differences with gender pay issues are recognised, there is a “significant risk” that reporting ethnicity pay levels could be “counterproductive”, according to the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) in its response to the UK government’s consultation on ethnicity pay reporting. Whilst supporting the government’s proposals to introduce mandatory reporting of ethnicity pay gap information, IES suggests that cultural and practical barriers to collecting and reporting ethnicity data are greater than for gender pay. More ... Continue reading