In the recent Employment Appeal Tribunal case of Lycee Francais, Charles de Gauelle V Delambre, it has been highlighted that a Tribunal is not only able to make awards for compensation, but also to act as an advisory service to employers. As was the case here, the Tribunal felt it necessary to make recommendations to the employer regarding their policy on discrimination.
These recommendations are still mandatory and must be complied with by the employer within a specified time frame. These recommendations can vary from making more of the workforce aware of what constitutes discrimination in the workplace, this was demonstrated here, by the fact that the employer had to distribute a copy of the judgement made against them to each member of the those responsible for policy and key decision making to absorb, understand and learn from, so as to improve the policy of that company.
Recommendations can also be to insist on the presence of an expert to advice on policy and implement training to key personnel so as to insure compliance with all UK Legislation.
The hope is that these recommendations will prevent future tribunal cases, and make businesses more aware of their duties and boundaries as an employer when employing staff. If your policies are up to date and your key personnel are trained and understand their responsibilities to their staff then this should reduce the number of employee issues in the work place, saving you both time, money and unnecessary stress. If you don’t have up to date policies or even contracts of employment, which should be issued within the first 4 weeks of any employees employment.
On average 55 vulnerabilities are identified daily.
What can I do?
Review your organisations priorities and ask ‘can we afford a breach?’. What do I do during an incident? Who do I involve? When do I involve the ICO?
If you’re unable to answers these questions, you need help from the experts.
