UK Employment Law, Structure, and Corporate Social Responsibility

This essay provides an overview of UK employment law, highlighting its structure and key components such as common law, statute, and European law. It discusses various acts like the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Equality Act 2010, emphasizing the rights and responsibilities of both employers and employees. The essay also delves into corporate social responsibility (CSR), defining it as a concept where organizations take responsibility for their business activities to benefit society, improve the quality of life, and contribute to economic development. Examples of companies like Rolex and Microsoft are used to illustrate CSR initiatives, focusing on areas such as poverty alleviation, healthcare, education, environmental sustainability, and community support. The essay concludes that employment law aims to protect the rights of both employers and employees while CSR initiatives demonstrate a company's commitment to ethical and social responsibilities.

Individual assignment

Table of Contents
ESSAY.............................................................................................................................................3
Structure of UK Employment Law..............................................................................................3
Corporate Social Responsibility..................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

ESSAY
This essay covers the relevant concepts about the Employment law of UK and its
structure. Furthermore, it will also highlights the organisation that is involved in Corporate
Social responsibility. There are three main laws that comes under UK employment law i.e.
common law, statute and European law. The employment law of UK covers various other acts
such as Equal pay act 1970, Health and safety at work etc act 1974, discrimination act 1975,
Employment rights act1996 etc. The law highlights various provisions that is necessary for the to
be complied by the company and employer under the employment contract. It highlights various
rights and responsibilities of the employer as well as employee of the company.
Structure of UK Employment Law
In UK , employment law is categorised into civil law and private law meaning is that its
enforcement results into one party suing another either for compensation of other remedy form
the court. Across UK the majority of the disputes that arise between employer and employee is
heard by the employment tribunal(Fahy, and et.al., 2019). The employment tribunals consist of
set of rules and regulations and is different from the provisions of civil courts. The UK
employment law act as a protector for the company and provide with necessary guidance about
the requirements that should be mentioned in the contract which includes the disciplinary rules
and regulations , holiday and pay related provisions etc. It also defines the various provisions
stating the rights of the employee and the provisions are covered according to the Equality Act
2010. It consist of vast area area of the legal system and covers the policies regarding the
employer and employee relationship. The employment law of UK is very complex as it covers
different acts regarding the rights and responsibilities and also for the safety of the employees
working in the company.
The main purpose of employment law is to ensure that the rights of both employer and
employee is protected. It also highlights various legislation such as unfair and wrongful
dismissal, holidays, pay, discrimination and these acts are place in order to protect the rights of
the workers for ill-treatment(Gant, 2020). It can be analysed from the research study is that most
of legislation is concerned with rights, safety and employee benefits. It has been analysed that in
many companies discrimination takes place as every employee comes from different background
and culture. It is necessary in order to retain the employees in the organisation to provide safety
and protection and also provide various benefits for the hard work they have invested in it. The

employment law favours the employee and protect from the discrimination and the related
provisions are mentioned under the equality act 2010. Under the employment law , the contract
of employment specifies various terms and conditions for the specific job role and also outlines
various roles and responsibilities , working hours and other necessary conditions. The
employment law is created for the benefit of both the employer and employee and for the
protection of both the parties. Whenever a case comes before the court regarding the unfair
dismissal or ill-treatment with the employees(Johnstone, and Dobbins, 2021). It is also revealed
that if any condition that is mentioned in the contract of the employments and the organisation
makes negligence or does not comply with such conditions is liable to compensate the employees
as it is covered under the act(Nguyen, 2021) . Furthermore, it is responsibility of the employer to
ensure health and safety of the employees and if these provisions are ignored by the organisation
they are liable to pay to the employee for the injury they suffered or any damage that took place
while handling the machinery. Under the employment law , it is the responsibility of the
company to create contract of employment and communicate to the employees regarding the
rights and responsibilities(Barnard, 2020). The court favours in protecting the rights of the
employees and safeguarding them from the discrimination or unfair dismissal by the employer
and they are liable to pay the for the misconduct .
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is defining as a concept which has been used by the
organization that is in interest of the society by taking the responsibility of the business activities.
Along with this, the main motive of the company is to uplift the backward section of the society
as well as to give good quality of services to customer. Although earlier CSR activities are not
statutory obligation the organization use to conduct activities voluntary and take step to
improve the quality of life for employees and the local communities at large scale. This is
basically growing concern about the industry as well as charity towards the society (LEE, 2020).
However, there has been no clear definition of CSR but it means Corporate social responsibility
and it is type of commitment by the companies to follow all the ethical contribution towards
economic development so that quality of life of local community, workers and customer can be
improved. Thus, CSR is about how the companies manage the organization process to produce
an overall positive impact on the society (Li, H. and et.al., 2020). In others words it can be
describe as company commitment to operate in economically, socially and environmentally

manner as well as balancing the interest of diverse stakeholders. So many businesses can make
use of CSR type values without clear define team and the business case of the company will
likely to be focusing on any societal issue. Although the CSR programme can be related to aid to
recruitment by hiring graduate students. It also helps organization in attracting large customer as
most of the consumer likely to buy product from companies that are involved in CSR activities.
It also helps in building customer loyalty which result in increasing brand image in the
competitive market.
Moreover, every small, large and medium size of the company can implement CSR
activities and give their contribution for developing the society but it should be in legal manner.
For example, Rolex has been one of top 10 most famous organization in the world from last so
many years. The company has an ability to connect its product to the company values trigger
investor by anchoring its value in high profile market. The company is committed toward
supporting and improving the lives of under privilege people. It is focusing on few areas like
removing the hunger and poverty as well as promoting health care facilities. The organization
also contribute to the sanitation policy implemented by government (Lee and Lee, 2019). The
company also promote education facilities to special child and give employment opportunity to
women, young adults. It also promotes gender equality by empowering women, setting up homes
for old age people, women and orphans. Moreover, it does ensure environmental sustainability
and protect the national heritage by promoting the development of traditional art and handicraft.
The company board ensure that organization spends 2% of average net profit of in every
financial year. Although the profit arising out of the CSR activities will not be added in the part
of the business profit of company and it shall be carried forward to next financial year.
The other example is the Microsoft, which is a leading software and hardware provider
an was founded in 1975. This company is well known for its excellent CSR programs and in
2016 and 2017 , Microsoft was placed on the 2nd position among the top 100 companies with
best reputation and its involvement in the CSR activities. The CSR at Microsoft lays emphasis
on three core areas such as Empowering people and in these related programs includes the
accessibility initiatives which ensures that the products and services of the company should be
available for all. The initiatives include the human rights initiatives , protection of data security
and empowering the employees of the company. The other area included the Strengthening
committee that focused on driving the economic opportunities by supporting the committees

which includes the non-profits and government committees. These initiatives included donations
for enhancing the education and operations in various other countries and providing support .
The last and most important is preserving the planet and focus on protecting the nature i.e.
environmental sustainability. In this program it focused on five areas i.e. carbon, energy ,
water ,waste and ecosystem. The company focused on the welfare of the society by focusing on
internal operations and footprints (Arli, and et.al., 2019). They also focused on continuing there
operations by also considering the sustainability of the environment and preserving the nature. It
is also observed that the carbon program of the Microsoft was the central of the sustainability
and development of the product focused on reducing the carbon innovations and developing the
sustainable energy project and technologies within the company.
From the above report it can be said that employment law is designed for protecting the
rights of both employer and employee and covers various other acts for eliminating the
discrimination that can arise the workplace. It also highlights the provisions regarding the
compensation that has to be paid for the misconduct bit for the employer and employee. Apart
from this various CSR initiative and programs implemented by the company is also
summarized.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Arli, and et.al., 2019. Hypocrisy, skepticism, and reputation: the mediating role of corporate
social responsibility. Marketing Intelligence & Planning.
Barnard, C., 2020. EU ‘Social’Policy From Employment Law to Labour Market Reform.
Fahy, and et.al., 2019. How will Brexit affect health services in the UK? An updated
evaluation. The Lancet. 393(10174). pp.949-958.
Gant, J.L., 2020. Britain and Brexit: A forecast of the future of employment protection during
corporate insolvency. International Insolvency Review.29(1). pp.61-82.
Johnstone, S. and Dobbins, T., 2021. Employment relations in the United
Kingdom. International and Comparative Employment Relations: Global Crises and
Institutional Responses, p.29.
LEE, J. W., 2020. CSR impact on the firm market value: Evidence from tour and travel
companies listed on chinese stock markets. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics,
and Business. 7(7). pp.159-167.
Lee, K. and Lee, H., 2019. How does CSR activity affect sustainable growth and value of
corporations? Evidence from Korea. Sustainability. 11(2). p.508.
Li, H. and et.al., 2020. Demonstrating the impact of cognitive CEO on firms’ performance and
CSR activity. Frontiers in Psychology. 11. p.278.
Nguyen, L.T., 2021. Legal Considerations for Determination of Employment Relation and
Employment Contract. VNU Journal of Science: Legal Studies. 37(2).
1

2