Introduction of Business and Employment Law

            The businesses as well as employment must follow certain rules and regulations so that things can be in order for every stakeholder and there is no confusion that how processes will be completed or finished. There are many business areas, which needs to be understood by business organisations that how they can deal with their employees, trade unions as well as any relevant aspects keeping the state’s rules in view. Otherwise, there would always be mess and things will never be in order. It is not that business and employment law is important for keeping things in an order, but they are also required for organisations to ensure that they make proper contracts, set relevant and important terms & conditions so that employees cannot file any case against them in any given terms.

            The first important area of business and employment law is employment contracts. In UK, it is mandatory for an employer to come up with a written contract, when employment period exceeds one month, and written contracts must be presented in first two months of employment. The other crucial aspect of business law is protecting relevant interest of the organisation and business. The business has to protect its intellectual property as well as confidentiality of its business. In terms of employment law, the most important area of concern for employees is the aspect of unfair dismissal. In UK, if employee has served two years in an organisation, only then he can go for unfair dismissal claim. But there can be exceptions as well for every individual case. One most important aspect associated with business and employment law is the issue of Discrimination. The law does not allow any business organisation to discriminate with its employees on any given reasons like discriminating on the basis of age, gender, pregnancy, disability, ethnicity, religion, race, as well as sexual orientation. The last but not the least, personal data is another critical area related to business and employment law. The employers have to follow General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) guidelines that how data of employees will be managed, used, processed and protected. It is important to mention here that these are few areas of business and employment law, and there can be many for various cases and situations. Even sometimes new issues arise before the court to decide that how certain issue should be resolved (Lobel, 2018)

Understanding different Aspects of Business and Employment Law with Real World Examples

        The business and employment law is such a vast area of study, because there are so many rules, regulations, laws as well as issues are associated with it. In most cases, the essence of business and employment law becomes very complex and things do not go as smoothly, as they may look by reading a certain law. It means that one may think that a contract has been signed with the relevant terms and conditions, and now if anything would go wrong, it will be sorted out with the help of terms mentioned in the contract. But things are not that easy in practical world, because one claim is made, they need to be proved right in front of the tribunals and courts to get the decision in favor. It means that it won’t be an easy task for either employee or employer to deal with any breaches, claims etc, as things get complex in these legal issues. So, it is important to look at different areas of business and employment law and then relevant real world cases should be referred to understand that how things happen in the practical terms. Each area of concern with relevant example will help to understand that how things look in real business world other than things written in the law books.

        The first aspect will be regarding employment law and the selected area of concern is the minimum wage. It is important for UK employers to understand that when someone turns 16 years old, then he/she is covered under the law of National Minimum Wage, and if age bracket starts from 25 years old, then an individual will be entitled for the National Living Wage. There is also a category of people, who are not entitled for National Minimum Wage including volunteers working for any charity, directors of the company, armed forces’ members, individuals less than the age of 16, prisoners, share fishermen, people from the religious community, as well as self-employed individuals etc. (www.gov.uk, 2019).

        To understand that how things work in real world, here is an example of a real case of minimum wage on Best Connection Group v HMRC. Best Connection Group was involved in the business as an employment agency, providing workers to organisations. They had a contract with a warehouse to provide around 1500 to 2000 employees on weekly basis. In 2016, HRMC started an investigation in month of January that what kind of pay rates is being provided in the warehouse. The investigation found that workers of the warehouse were being underpaid and two reasons were provided for that, which explained that they were being underpaid for being late, but it was also found that security searches were involved taking time of the workers. It was found that collective weekly pay of the workers not equal to National Minimum Wage. Best Connection Group has to go through the data of 6500 workers to see what has happened. HRMC told Best Connection Group that they will have to pay the underpayment amount to workers and they will also have to pay penalties as well. 13 notices were issued by HRMC for underpayment, and amount for underpayment was £469,274, and penalties amount was £263,629. Best Connection Group appealed in the court against the HRMC penalties with an argument that HRMC is not entitled to send multiple notices etc. But appeal was rejected and Best Connection Group was asked to pay penalties as HRMC was found entitled to sent multiple notices under the NMW (Casemine.com, 2017)

            The other major area of concern in business and employment law is inequality and discrimination. The employees working in UK should know that they are protected against any kind of discrimination made by an employer against them. The employees are protected for various types of discrimination at work such as redundancy, recruitment, training, transfer & promotion opportunities, pay, rewards, benefits, employment terms and dismissal. Moreover, it is also explained in the law that employers cannot discriminate with employees on the basis of disability. If someone is disable, and working in any organisation, his rights are equal to the normal workers. Moreover, it is obligatory for employers to provide reasonable facilities by making an adjustment to facilitate disable employees. The inequality and unfair treatment of employers is also protected by the law, and one can refer to the rules and regulations provided by the UK government. So, if any of their right is violated under the aspect of discrimination, they can file cases against the employers on the basis of relevant employment laws (GOV.UK, 2019)

            One such case of discrimination happened in 2014, when poster girl of Metropolitan police won her discrimination case against the Metropolitan police. The case was presented before the Employment Tribunal (ET) in which PC Carol Howard claimed that Met Police and her Boss has been discriminating with her on the basis of sex, marital status as well as race. She also told the tribunal that she was also harassed as well as victimized by his boss in so many ways. She also told the tribunal that concern people, who had to hear my complaints, they were not cooperative too, and she kept facing so many difficulties and she was mentally disturbed due to this unfair treatment and discrimination. The case was investigated and it was found by ET that claims made by PC Carol Howard were true, so tribunal asked the Met Police to pay £25,000to the claimant, because she was mentally injured by all this situation (Croner-i Ltd, 2014)

Conclusion/Recommendations of Business and Employment Law

            After analysing various elements of the business and employment law, it can be said that this is vast area to analyse and study for all stakeholders including employees, employers, legal advisers, courts etc. It can also be said that employees and employers, both should understand relevant business and employment laws; otherwise things can get worst for them, when issues come across. Looking at the cases and real world examples, it is recommended to both employers and employees that before making any decisions, writing employment contracts, dismissing employees, or employees going for any claims, they must understand relevant laws so that they can fight their cases in a better manner. If any party would not know the rules and laws, then they won’t win their disputes and claims.

References of Business and Employment Law

Casemine.com, 2017. The Best Connection Group Limited v HMRC. [Online]
Available at: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5b444c892c94e050012d87f0
[Accessed 5 July 2019].

Croner-i Ltd, 2014. Howard v Metropolitan Police Service (2014). [Online]
Available at: https://app.croneri.co.uk/law-and-guidance/case-reports/howard-v-metropolitan-police-service-2014-employment-tribunal-case
[Accessed 5 July 2019].

GOV.UK, 2019. Discrimination: your rights. [Online]
Available at: https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights/discrimination-at-work
[Accessed 5 July 2019].

Lobel, B., 2018. Five areas of employment law small businesses must be aware of. [Online]
Available at: https://smallbusiness.co.uk/employment-law-small-businesses-must-be-aware-of-2544687/
[Accessed 5 July 2019].

www.gov.uk, 2019. The National Minimum Wage and Living Wage. [Online]
Available at: https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage/who-gets-the-minimum-wage
[Accessed 5 July 2019].