August 2022

Supreme Court ruling on Harpur Trust vs Brazel

The HR landscape changes all the time. Last month, the Supreme Court made an important ruling that could affect many businesses in the UK. The Court ruled that employees that only work for part of the year are entitled to the same holiday pay as their full-time colleagues. The case, The Harpur Trust v Brazel, could have significant repercussions. Are you prepared for how it might impact your business?

The decision affects those workers who work for part of the year under permanent or continuous contracts. This includes, for example, term-time only workers, seasonal workers, those on zero hour contracts, bank staff, and workers engaged under umbrella contracts.

The finer details are quite complex, as you might expect. There are a lot of parameters to consider depending on whether employees work for five days a week or less.

But the key takeaway for SMEs is clear: the landscape for holiday pay has significantly changed and, unwittingly, SMEs may soon be breaking the law if they don’t act on the judgement. If they don’t act, businesses could be at risk of claims for up to two years of back pay.

Transform HR can help.

Book a FREE consultation with Diane Johnson, our HR Lead Consultant, and we can then start with a health check of your organisation’s basic HR terms and conditions. This is a bit like having an annual MOT for your car – vital to ensure you are compliant and key to enabling you to drive your business forward with the confidence of knowing you are doing the right thing by all your staff, both full and part-time.

Boost your people power with expert HR advice

Compliance, training, reviews, policies, contracts... Even if you only have a small number of staff, managing your HR responsibilities can feel like a full-time job.

However, whilst most small companies don’t need an in-house, permanent HR function, they will certainly benefit from having access to our HR Director-led services when they need it.

Get in touch with Diane Johnson, our Lead HR Consultant today and arrange a FREE consultation to discuss all your HR needs.

Diane also provides professional coaching to business owners and leaders. 

If you want to explore the benefits that can come from coaching, get in touch with Diane today.