Have you heard the latest news?

Welcome to HR Heartbeat, where we give you a rundown of the week's top employment law stories. Stay on the pulse of current trends impacting your business, plus get up-to-the-minute commentaries on all things HR and legal. So, let’s check out this week’s headlines…

Employing ex-offenders

The founder of Offploy, an organisation that supports people with criminal convictions into employment, has urged employers not to refuse a candidate a job based on previous criminal conviction.

There are 600,000 people with spent convictions looking for work in the UK and Offploy’s mission is to help the UK fill the talent and skills shortage by working with candidates and employers.

The founder’s advice to employers is that they should consider whether the conviction is relevant to the open vacancy and if not, talk to the person and “assess them yourself” before making any snap decisions.

Learn more about hiring employees with spent convictions — both your rights and theirs. Ask BrightHR Lightning: Does an employee have to tell me if they have a spent conviction?

Should employers have a pregnancy loss policy?

Last week, the GMB (Britain’s General Union) called on the government to include miscarriages in parental bereavement leave.

Their argument is that the current statutory parental bereavement leave doesn’t go far enough. Currently, employees have the right to time off after a stillbirth from the 24th week of pregnancy. But this law doesn’t apply to miscarriages before this point or to termination for medical reasons.

Union delegates recommend workplaces adopt a ‘Pregnancy Loss Policy’ and they support all employees through the bereavement and grief of a pregnancy loss, making workplace adjustments if necessary.

New data released on employment tribunal claims

The Ministry of Justice has announced it received 23,000 employment tribunal claims from January to March 2023 — 8,100 of these were single claims, and 15,000 were multiple claims. And there were 37,000 single claims in the system at the end of March 2023.

The Ministry of Justice explained that these stats are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Moving to a new case management system has meant the number of new cases in the system has not been included. So, comparisons with statistics before September 2022, when the new system was implemented, should be viewed with caution.

Get expert advice and answers to frequently asked questions about employment tribunals.

And that’s a wrap. Tune in next week for more headlines and make sure you stay ahead of major employment law changes!