Managing Employment Relations: Legal Compliance and Employee Rights

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Managing Employment Relations refers to the approaches which the organizations are
required to adopt which will help them a lot in ensuring that they are able to effectively and
efficiently manage a range of different types of needs and requirements in a proper manner.
Managing of this type of relations can be helpful in ensuring that the compliance can be
maintained with the laws, rules and regulations. This can help the organizations in ensuring
that their workers are managed properly. In this report, there will be a detailed discussion on
the different types of questions which are related with the wide range of Employment Law
which are important in the organizations.
In reply to Question 1
According to Deregulation Bill, 2015 new provision has been added which allows the
Sikhs to wear turbans in their workplace without any restrictions on them (Adam Cobb,
2016). This change has been brought to ensure that the loopholes in the earlier law are
cleared and more specific instructions and directions are available. This allows them to be
able to maintain their faith in their religion. Earlier, there was a loophole in the law in which
the Sikhs were not exempted from wearing their turban in construction sites where work is
done in hazardous environments. Thus, this has created a relaxation for the Sikhs which
enables them to be able to comply with the different needs and requirements of their faith.
However, it can be said that the changes which have been brought by OHF by not
allowing Kumar Singh to wear his turban at the workplace do not comply with the current
Employment legislation. The changes which have been brought by the company are not
according to the Deregulation Bill, 2015 which has created a provision for relaxation of the
rules. Thus, it is clear that OHF is not complying with the needs and requirements of the law
and thus this is impacting Kumar Singh and his religious beliefs. The company is required to
make sure that the following actions are taken in order to ensure legal compliance with
Deregulation Bill, 2015.Kumar Singh needs to be allowed to wear his turban because
allowing him will ensure that OHF is able to comply with the detailed rules and regulations
of the Deregulation Bill, 2015 and will thus make sure that the compliance with these rules
and regulations can be done in the right manner. The permission has to be extended to him
according to the legal provisions of this particular law (Almost and et.al., 2016).
As is stipulated in Human Rights Act 1998 Art.9 : Freedom of thought ,conscience and
religion “everyone has the right to freedom of thought ,conscience and religion; this right
includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community

with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching,
practice and observance” .
Further, the company needs to ensure that the provisions of the Deregulation Bill,
2015 are complied with and in this way, it will be able to ensure that the employees are able
to exercise their rights. It needs to make sure that the employee rights which are mentioned as
a part of the bill and the change which has been brought due to the provisions can be
implemented within the company.
According to the UK legislation, it is stated that Maternity leave is allowed to female
employees when it is stated in their contract. In this way it can be said that the female
employees are not allowed Maternity Leave if the company or the organisation for which
they work for has not stated it clearly in the contract that they will be allowed Maternity
Leave.
In accordance to the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 the women in the country have been
provided with a right to take Maternity Leave as required by them. Thus, this act ensures that
the women in the country are able to take the maternity leave as and when required by them
which will be quite helpful for them to be able to take the right rest during pregnancy.
In OHF, an employee named Chloe Chan is pregnant and thus wants to take maternity
leave. However, Maternity leave has not been stated on her contract. She has been told by the
company that she will not be allowed any Maternity Leave and needs to take annual leave.
OHF is thus right in order to refuse Chloe Chan on her maternity leave because there
has been no mention about the same in the contract which she has signed with the company.
According to the UK law, agency and other workers can be refused Maternity Leave if
it has not been stated in their contracts which they have done with the company (Armstrong
and Taylor, 2020). The changes brought by the company are compliant with the current
employment legislation. Therefore, there are no specific steps which are required to be taken
by the company to ensure legal compliance with the law. As the company has stated quite
clearly in the contract that the female employees will not be allowed maternity leave and will
have to take annual leave instead, they are not required to take such a leave.
According to the UK Employment Legislation, there are no specific guidelines for the
organisations that they are required to pay the wages and salaries. The companies which
closed during the COVID-19 pandemic were not given any kind of compulsion by the
government in order to pay wages and salaries to their staff members during the lockdown.
The Equality Act, 2010 states that there must be no differentiation between the people with
regards to the payment of the salaries and wages to them. This helps in ensuring that the
salaries and wages can be paid in the right manner to the people.

Therefore, it can be said that the decision made by OHF to not pay its staff during the period
of lockdown is compliant with the legal rules and regulations of UK because they the
COVID-19 guidelines specified by the government do not provide any specific instructions
for the purpose of ensuring that they are paid their wages and salaries during this particular
period (Barley, Bechky and Milliken, 2017).
There was a particular impact created by the employees due to the non-payment of
wages and salaries during the lockdown (Becker and Tews, 2016). However, for the
protection of the workers the UK Government has announced that it will pay 2/3rd of their
wages during the lockdown. These wages will be paid to those workers whose companies
were forced to close down during the period of lockdown in U.K.
Thus, It can be said that both Kumar Singh and Chloe Chan who are the employees of
OHF have certain rights and therefore it is quite important for the management to look upon
these particular rights which will enable it to be able to ensure that the legal point of view can
be considered and thus the appropriate actions can be taken in a right manner so that the
employees are able to legally avail their rights.
Also as per the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 it is quite important that the benefit of
maternity leave is made available to the female employees. Therefore, In this way it can be
said that Chloe Chan is absolutely right to claim Maternity Leave.
In reply to Question 2
Based on the Equality Act, 2010 it has been clearly stated that if there is a need to take
time off by an employee due to Gender Reproject then they have a right to claim Sick Leave.
Thus, in this way the employers cannot discriminate against employees if they have been
absent due to sickness or injury (Birtch, Chiang and Van Esch, 2016).
There can be no differentiation between the employees in availing their Sick Leave.
Therefore, it is quite important that the sections of the Equality Act can be applied in a right
manner which will be quite helpful in ensuring that the Sick Leave can be given to the
employees which will help in ensuring that the treatment of the workers is done properly so
that they can avail the benefit of leave for GR. This will be helpful particularly for those
employees who want to avail leave for GR.
The Act provides employees all the rights to take sick leaves on the basis of any physical or
mental health condition which they are facing and thus it states that there cannot be any kind
of legal discrimination against them, provided optimum protection to the different employees
regarding the discrimination which they may face from the companies regarding the sick
leaves.
The law clearly states that an employee is protected against discrimination if he/she
wants time off because of undertaking Gender Reproject . The organisations cannot
discriminate against the employees when they take these particular leaves because they are to
be given leaves irrespective of the physical or mental health issue which they are facing.The
employer is bound to give sick leave to the employee for undertaking Gender Reproject .