What Employment Laws have Changed?
What Employment Laws have Changed?
The Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2018 originally required employers to provide the following core terms to employees in writing within five days of commencement of employment:
The full names of the employer and employee, the address of the employer, the expected duration of the contract (if the contract is temporary or fixed-term), the rate or method of calculating pay, and the ‘pay reference period’ (i.e., weekly, fortnightly, or monthly), and what the employer reasonably expects the typical length of an employee’s working day and week to be (for example, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week).
The Day 5 statement must now also include the following:
The duration and conditions relating to a probationary period, if applicable, the place of work or, where there is no fixed or main place of work, a statement specifying that the employee is employed at various places or is free to determine his or her place of work or to work at various places, the title, grade, nature, or category of work for which the employee is employed or a brief description of the work, the date of commencement of contract of employment, any terms and conditions relating to hours of work (including overtime).
The Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994 requires now that The Written Statement of Terms of Employment be given to employees in writing within one month (previously two months).
Probation Periods – effective August 2022, probationary periods in the private sector must be no more than 6 months in duration (and for public servants, must be no more than 12 months). Employers may extend probationary periods on an exceptional basis for no longer than 6 months subject to a 12-month maximum and it is in the interest of the employee to extend the probationary periods if: It is an exception rather than customary to extend probationary periods, it is in the employee’s interests (if the alternative is termination, extending the probation period is presumably in the employee’s interests), and the extended probation period lasts no longer than 12 months.
Parallel Employment – employers must not prohibit an employee from taking up employment with a second employer if the second job is outside the work schedule agreed with the employee. You may object, however, if the employee’s second job is not feasible based on objective grounds such as health and safety reasons, risks to business confidentiality, risks to the integrity of a public service, or conflicts of interests with your business.
Right to transfer to more predictable and secure work - an employee who has completed their probationary period and has been in continuous service for at least six months, may request a transfer to more predictable and secure working conditions. Such a request must be provided a reasonable reply and such a request can be made once in any twelve-month period.
Mandatory Training – where your business is required by law or by a collective agreement to provide training to an employee to carry out their work, you must provide such training to the employee free of cost and count the training as working time.
Collective Agreements – where an employee is covered by either a collective agreement approved of by the Labour Court, or a registered employment agreement, it’s important to note that the rules on probationary periods, the right to seek parallel employment, the right to request more predictable and secure working conditions and the right to paid work-related training do not apply.
Contract of Employment Changes – if you make a change to The Written Statement of Terms of Employment, you must notify the employee in writing no later than the day that the change takes effect (previously employers had one month within which to confirm changes in writing).
Minimum predictability of work – in addition to giving employees at least 24 hours’ notice of when they are required to work, employers must ensure that work assignments take place within the reference hours and days notified to the employee as part of their written terms. If minimum notice is not provided the employee is entitled to refuse the work assignment without adverse consequences.
Where an employee is a posted worker within the meaning of The European Union (Posting of Workers) Regulations, 2016 additional information must be provided, namely: remuneration to which the employee is entitled in accordance with the applicable law of the host Member Staff (i.e. Irish law), any allowances specific to the posting, if any, and any arrangements for reimbursing expenditure on travel, board and lodging, a link to the official national website developed by the host Member State concerning the posting of workers and the provision of services.
