This document provides an overview of employee relations and employment legislation. It aims to explain matters relating to employment relationships and the laws governing them. Some key points covered include defining employee relations and identifying related issues. It discusses how legislation can impact work-life balance and provides examples of laws supporting employees' family roles. The document also outlines discrimination laws, organizational policies and procedures, and how these support performance and mitigate risk. The presentation is intended to help participants understand employment relationships and the legal framework in which they operate.

1. Employee relations; focusing
on legislations that governs
employment relationships.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

2. AIM
To understand matters that relate to
employment relationships including
legislations that governs them.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

3. Learning Objectives:
By the end of the session the participants will be
able to:
 Explain what is employee relations and identify
matters that relate to employment relationships.
 Understand how legislation can impact on the
work-life balance within the employment
relationship
 Identify and understand legislations that support
employee in their role as a family member
 Understand the individual rights that the
employee has during the employment
relationship
 Understand the good practice and legal
requirements that support organisational policies
and procedures and how these support
organisational performance and mitigate risk.Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

4. Introduction:
 According to CIPD, Employee relations
is an underlying philosophy, along with
necessary attitudes and skills, rather
than a specific management function or
well-defined activity.
 Within the organization you will find
matters related to employee relations
such as: absence, communication and
consultation, discipline and grievances,
dismissal, employee engagement,
flexible working, the psychological
contract and working time.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

5. How legislation can impact on
the work-life balance within the
employment relationship
(holidays, rest periods, working
hours and night working)
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

6. What is Work-life Balance
Work–life balance is a concept
including proper prioritising between
"work" (career and ambition) and
"lifestyle" (health, pleasure, leisure,
family and spiritual
development/meditation).
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

7. Holiday Entitlement:
The legal minimum:
Under the Working Time Regulations 1998
(as amended), workers (including part-
timers and most agency and freelance
workers) have the right to:
 5.6 weeks’ paid leave each year (from 1
April 2009)
 payment for untaken statutory leave
entitlement on termination of
employment.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

8. Rest Breaks:
Rest breaks at work
 Workers have the right to one uninterrupted 20 minute
rest break during their working day (this could be a tea
or lunch break), if they work more than 6 hours a day.
Daily rest
 Workers have the right to 11 hours rest between
working days (eg if you finish work at 8pm, they
shouldn’t start work again until 7am the next day).
Weekly rest
Workers have the right to:
 an uninterrupted 24 hours without any work each week,
or
 48 hours each fortnight
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

9. Night time hours and limits
Night time working hours are usually
between 11pm and 6am - but this can
be flexible if agreed between workers
and the employer. The agreement must
be in writing.
The night time period must be 7 hours
long include the period between
midnight and 5am
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

10. Maximum Weekly working
hours
 The law says that workers don’t
usually have to work more than 48
hours a week on average, unless they
choose to. This law is sometimes
called the ‘working time directive’ or
‘working time regulations’.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

11. Impact of work-life balance
 Access to flexible working patterns for all staff at all
levels without career detriment.
 Opportunities for all workers to use their full range of
skills regardless of their working pattern.
 Better opportunities and incentives for acquiring new
skills.
 Appraisal systems based on contribution and
achievement rather than attendance.
 Appropriate support and provision for childcare.
 Adequate staffing levels and achievable targets and
workloads.
 Limiting individual choices of working patterns only
when there is a real need to do so.
 Skilling managers to manage a workforce with diverse
working patterns.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

12. The legal support that may be
given to the employee in their
role as a family member
(maternity, paternity, adoption
and dependents leave)
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

13. Maternity leave:
 All pregnant employees who qualify
for ordinary maternity leave (OML)
therefore also qualify for AML. AML is
the further 26 weeks maternity leave
producing a total of 52 weeks
maternity leave.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

14. Paternity leave:
 If you are a father-to-be or a pregnant
woman's partner – including same-sex
partner – you could have the right to
paternity leave. You may have the
right to up to 26 weeks'
Additional Paternity Leave
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

15. Adoption leave
Statutory Adoption Leave is 52 weeks.
It’s made up of:
 26 weeks of Ordinary Adoption Leave
 26 weeks of Additional Adoption Leave
Only 1 person in a couple can take
adoption leave. The other partner could
get paternity leave instead.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

16. Time off for dependents
 Employee are allowed time off to deal
with an emergency involving a
dependant. A dependant could be a
spouse, partner, child, grandchild,
parent, or someone who depends on
you for care.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

17. Some of the reasons for treating
employees fairly in relation to
pay
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

18. For Transparency
 Transparency is an advantage to an
employer as it will avoid uncertainty
and perceptions of unfairness and
reduce the possibility of individual
claims.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

19. The Burden of Proof
 It has generally been accepted in the
UK that, once an applicant has
demonstrated that there is a prima
facie case for equal pay and the
applicant's job has been found to be of
equal value to that of the comparator,
it is for the employer to show why
equal pay should not be paid.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

20. The main points of
discrimination legislation
(direct and indirect
discrimination, harassment,
victimisation and equalities
legislation)
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

21. Protected characteristics
The Act offers protection to people with
‘protected characteristics’. The list of nine
protected characteristics are:
 age
 disability
 gender reassignment
 marriage and civil partnership
 pregnancy and maternity
 race
 religion or belief
 sex
 sexual orientation
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

22. Direct discrimination
This occurs when an employee is treated less
favourably due to a protected characteristic.
 Associative discrimination is discrimination
against a person because they have an
association with someone with a particular
protected characteristic. An example of
associative discrimination might be a non-
disabled employee who is discriminated
against because of action she needs to take
to care for a disabled dependant.
 Perceptive discrimination is discrimination
against a person because the discriminator
thinks the person possesses that
characteristic, even if they do not in fact do
so.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

23. Indirect discrimination
Indirect discrimination occurs where a Provision, Criterion
or Practice (PCP) applies to everybody, but the PCP has:
 a disproportionate impact on people with a particular
protected characteristic,
 it is to the disadvantage of a person with that protected
characteristic, and
 it is not a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate
aim.
For example, an employer could introduce a shift pattern
which requires all employees to work until 10pm three
times a week – this would be a PCP. The employer
applies it to all employees. However, women (protected
characteristic of sex) are going to be disproportionately
affected by this PCP because women are more likely than
men to have caring responsibilities.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

24. Harassment
 Harassment is defined as: ‘unwanted
conduct related to a relevant protected
characteristic, which has the purpose
or effect of violating an individual’s
dignity or creating an intimidating,
hostile, degrading, humiliating or
offensive environment for that
individual'.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

25. Victimisation
 This occurs when an employee is
treated less favourably because they
have made or supported a complaint
related to the Act, or they are
suspected of doing so.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

26. Equality
 The Equality Act gives individuals
greater protection from unfair
discrimination and makes it easier for
employers and companies to
understand their responsibilities.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

27. The good practice and legal
requirements that underpin
organisational policies and
procedures and how these
support organisational
performance and mitigate risk
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

28. How organisational Policies and
Procedure support organisational
performance and mitigate risk
Reasons for HR Policies:
 The need to reflect and comply with existing or new
legislation, including European directives and case law
 To support business strategy
 To follow the latest developments in effective people
management
 In dealing with internal change
 In complying with company guidance to keep up with
competitors - for example, reward policies may be
reviewed in order to attract or retain employees
 For smaller organisations, a desire to develop a more
formal and consistent approach that will meet their
needs as they grow and develop.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

29. Type of Organisational
Policies and Procedures
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

30. Beginning Employment
 Recruitment and Selection Policy
and Procedure: The policy setting
out its criteria for selection, together
with other relevant policies for new
joiners (such as induction)
 Induction Policy and Procedure:
 Probationary period policy:
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

31. During employment
 Reward : The type of policy coverage in this
respect might address areas such as how
jobs are graded and how performance is
rewarded.
 Learning and development: Issues in this
policy would include courses and
secondment opportunities, talent
development, payment of professional fees
and so on.
 Health, safety and well-being: Policies in
this area might cover a disparate range of
topics from absence and employee
assistance programmes to handling
hazardous materials. Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

32. During Employment
 Employee relations and general HR
issues such as: disciplinary and
grievance policies, time off and leave
for trade union activities, holidays,
secondment, volunteering, maternity
and paternity leave, communication,
harassment and bullying.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

33. Ending employment
 Employee Separation Policy: This
policy covers issues such as:
Involuntary and Voluntary, Layoffs,
Resignation, Retirement, Death of an
Employee, Certificate of Service and
Exit Procedures.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

34. Other Policies
 Managing equality, diversity and
inclusion: The policy addresses
issues such as discrimination. Good
practice suggests that an overarching
equality and diversity policy should
expressly inform the organisation's
vision and values.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

35. Learning objective
 Explain what is employee relations and
identify matters that relate to employment
relationships.
 Understand how legislation can impact on the
work-life balance within the employment
relationship
 Identify and understand legislations that
support employee in their role as a family
member
 Understand the individual rights that the
employee has during the employment
relationship
 Understand the good practice and legal
requirements that support organisational
policies and procedures and how thesePresented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

36. List of References
Websites:
 http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/resources/wellbeing_at_work/work-
life-balance--guide-for-negotiators.cfm
 http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/resources/wellbeing_at_work/work-
life-balance--information-for-members.cfm
 http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/d/4/Holidays-and-holiday-
pay.pdf
 https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work/overview
 https://www.gov.uk/night-working-hours/hours-and-limits
 https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours
 http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/resources/wellbeing_at_work/work-
life-balance--information-for-members.cfm
 http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/employment-law-
faqs/maternity-paternity-leave.aspx
 https://www.gov.uk/adoption-pay-leave/leave
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

37. List of References
 http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/department_for_transport_group/hel
pful-guides/the-docs/equal-pay-detailed.cfm
 http://www.cipd.couk/hr-resources/factsheets/equality-act-
2010.aspx
 http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-topics/employment-law.aspx
 http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/legal-and-
policy/legislation/equality-act-2010/equality-act-codes-
practice-and-technical-guidance
 http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/docum
ents/EqualityAct/employercode.pdf
 http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/hr-
policies.aspx#link_2
 http://www.kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/Empl
oymentAct_Cap226-No11of2007_01.pdf
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu

38. Books
Malcolm Martin, Fiona Whiting and
Tricia Jackson, Human Resource
Practice – 5th Edition: Employee
Relations pg. 214-250, CIPD, London.
Presented by: Judith Kinya Ntimbu