Irish Employment Law: What We Learned Last Quarter – November 2022

What We Learned Last Quarter – November 2022

Legal Island's Learning and Development team have collated all of the updates we sent our 1,600+ Irish Employment Law Hub subscribers in Q3 2022. 

Every three months, we update you with some of the key developments in employment law and practice affecting the Irish workplace in the quarter.

Although the seasons have changed, cost of living and inflation is still affecting employees and businesses across Ireland.  Ken Killoran, Tax Partner in Mazars, set out the  key measures from employment tax perspective in September.

Cost of Living

Everyone was looking to save cash or earn more.  Some organisations provided inflation-busting raises to help employees cope and for those who weren’t as fortunate, Dr Gerry McMahon advised on how to get a pay rise.

Industrial Relations

A ‘High-Level Working Group’, set up in March 2021 under the auspices of the Labour Employer Economic Forum (LEEF), presented its report to the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar TD on collective bargaining and the industrial relations landscape in Ireland.

Recruitment

Employers didn’t have it easy with competition for talent and a recruitment shortage.  HR professionals had the unenviable task of balancing robust recruitment to find the right talent but also tried to remove barriers, such as CV cover letters and looking more empathetically at career gaps as the labour market tightened.  

Caroline Reidy from the HR Suite encouraged us to acknowledge how mindsets can affect how we perceive particular situations and react to them – a useful reminder to look at ways of changing and improving what we do. 

Organisations also looked at issues like probation management when they could find talent and the challenges of engaging staff while working from home.   

Remote Working

The huge rise in home working brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic made remote work more mainstream and the Irish government made further progress in prioritising an employee’s right to request remote working. Aoife Gallagher Watson from A&L Goodbody provided guidance to employers on initiatives such as remote working, hybrid working, right to disconnect and flexible working to help keep up to date with all the changes – whew!

Legislation

And if that wasn’t enough, Legal Island and Lewis Silkin published an updated version of the Comparative Employment Law Table: Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain, outlining the key differences between the employment laws of all three areas in one handy resource for HR professionals working across different jurisdictions.

Sick Leave Legislation

Niamh Crotty and Kevin Gallagher of Lewis Silkin looked at the new sick leave legislation in Ireland and lessons learned in Great Britain and Northern Ireland around managing absence effectively in a recent webinar (and what not to do!).

Disabilities

In a recent First Tuesday Q&A, Fiona Sharkey from A&L Goodbody provided insight when employees have undisclosed disabilities and how employers can support employees and stay on the right side of the law.

The case of An Accounting Trainee v An Accountancy Firm [2022] highlighted the importance of engaging with an employee regarding their disability once an employer has notice of this regarding potential reasonable accommodations.

Menopause

In October, we marked International Menopause Day with an ‘In Brief’ special discussing how this can be supported in the workplace with links and information on the different resources available.  This included our own eLearning training aimed at increasing awareness within your organisation.  You can ask for a demo here.

Looking Ahead

Our Annual Review of Employment Law was a resounding success with expert speakers on a wide range of topics. It took place 30^th of November and 1^st of December, leaving plenty of time for those composing annual cautionary holiday-time memos about appropriate workplace behaviour or accepting gifts.   Did I hear someone say ‘Secret Santa?’