Employment Law – Excessive Working Hours – Breach Of Duty Of Care

n the case of Mark Hone v Six Continents Retail Limited (2005), a pub landlord having collapsed due to overwork successfully sued his former employers in the County Court for breach of duty of care.

Mr Hone, the claimant, started working for Bass (now Six Continents) as a pub manager in 1995 and in 1998 was awarded “Pub Manager of the Year”. However, in 1999 he started working at The Old Moat House where he found himself working 13 hour days.

He repeatedly complained to his employers that he was overworked but the employers took no action. He had no assistant manager and other staff members, who left, including two chefs and an administrative worker, were never replaced.

Mr Hone, who had refused to sign a clause opting out of EU legislation that limits the number of hours an employee works, began suffering from headaches and insomnia. In May 2000, he collapsed at work suffering from an anxiety disorder. In 2004, Mr Hone sued Bass for breaching the duty of care owed to him as an employee.

The first instance court ( Swansea County Court ) held that:

Bass had not taken reasonable steps to ensure that Mr Hone did not work over 48 hours, which was likely to cause injury to his health, and that resources were available to employ more support staff for him; and
Bass should pay Mr Hone 21,000 in damages.
Six Continents (formerly Bass) appealed this decision to the Court of Appeal who upheld the Swansea County Court’s judgment.

Comment: This case highlights the importance of not imposing excessive working hours on employees and ensuring that employees have sufficient staff support.

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RT COOPERS, 2005. This Briefing Note does not provide a comprehensive or complete statement of the law relating to the issues discussed nor does it constitute legal advice. It is intended only to highlight general issues. Specialist legal advice should always be sought in relation to particular circumstances.

Ethical Behaviour Risk Factors Lessons From Emilio Botin Abbey Santander 2009

Some of the factors that increase the risk of unethical behaviour in organisations are illustrated by the high-profile legal case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), in which the Employment Tribunal made a finding of unlawful racial discrimination and (further to Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group’s refusal to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger) ordered Abbey Banco Santander share to pay Mr Chagger the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation for his loss. Abbey Santander share price (the UK bank soon to be re-branded as Santander banking group, and part of the global Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano Group – BSCH) dismissed Mr Chagger from his employment in 2006, giving a fair redundancy as the reason. However, Mr Chagger believed that the actual reason behind the termination of his employment was unfairness and race discrimination. Mr Chagger was of Indian origin. He worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander finance as a Trading Risk Controller, earning about 100,000 a year, and reporting into Nigel Hopkins.

Some ethical behaviour risk factors illustrated by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander 2009 clearly relate to the pursuit of personal goals; the Employment Tribunal found that Mr Hopkins personally desired Mr Chagger’s employment with Abbey Santander share price to be terminated, had pre-planned that Mr Chagger would be dismissed, and had used the compulsory redundancy process as a means to dismiss Mr Chagger, in an unfair and discriminatory manner.

One such factor increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the amount of discretion an organisation allows its officers; the greater the discretion allowed, the greater the opportunity the officer has for acting in his personal interests. The Employment Tribunal found that the redundancy selection criteria Abbey Santander had permitted Mr Hopkins to apply in assessing and judging the two employees up for redundancy were highly subjective and un-measurable; they afforded Mr Hopkins a very wide discretion. The Employment Tribunal criticised Mr Hopkins for the way in which he had applied that discretion (i.e., for his own interests). As an example, Mr Hopkins had criticised and scored Mr Chagger lower for getting on with work and being self-reliant. The Employment Tribunal thought that other reasonable managers would consider such qualities to be valuable assets, considering Mr Chagger’s highly paid and highly responsible job, and praise and score him highly for. As a further example, during the redundancy process, Mr Hopkins had criticised Mr Chagger on numerous points that Mr Chagger had never been criticised for prior to the redundancy exercise. All the criticisms were inconsistent with previous company records of Mr Chagger’s performance. The Employment Tribunal ruled that the criticisms were unfair not legitimate.

Another such factor increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the level of autonomy of decision-making and action an organisation allows its officers; the greater the level of autonomy, the greater the opportunity the officer has for acting in his personal interests. The Tribunal found that Mr Hopkins was entirely single-handedly able to advise Abbey’s management to dismiss one of the two Trading Risk Controllers that he managed (of which Mr Chagger was one), was entirely single-handedly able to make Mr Chagger an offer of voluntary redundancy (Mr Chagger refused the offer, and never was an equivalent offer ever made to the other Trading Risk Controller), was entirely single-handedly able to judge and score the two employees up for redundancy, and was entirely single-handedly able to lower Mr Chagger’s redundancy scores to guarantee that he would be the one who would be selected for dismissal.

A different type of factor also increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the organisation’s focus; a focus on results rather than processes can imply that the ends justify the means. The UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment provides organisations with guidance concerning good practices and processes. The Employment Tribunal found that Abbey Banco Santander had failed to comply with those processes. Abbey Grupo Santander had failed to comply with the statutory guidance regarding Equal Opportunity training. Mr Chagger had tried to resolve the issues of unfairness and race discrimination around his dismissal directly with Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, through the company’s grievance procedures. Santander Abbey had not provided any Equal Opportunity training to any of the managers it had assigned to decide on Mr Chagger’s issues. Not even one manager upheld Mr Chagger’s issues; his issues were simply dismissed out of hand. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group had also failed to comply with the statutory guidance concerning monitoring procedures. The Tribunal found a multitude of monitoring failures (far too many to outline here), as well as the failures to give serious consideration to allegations of racial discrimination and to investigate them promptly.

In 2008, Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against the original Employment Tribunal’s ruling of racial discrimination; the EAT upheld the original Tribunal’s ruling that both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had also appealed against the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award; the EAT accepted Abbey Santander’s appeal on the compensation award and remitted it to the original Tribunal for reconsideration. In 2009, matters were escalated to the Court of Appeal (the second highest court in the UK). The Court’s List of Hearings showed that the case was heard on 7 and 8 July 2009. The Court’s records of the hearing were not available at the time of writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers, who represented Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, had reported prior to the hearing that the it was to be about quantum only (i.e., compensation) and not about liability (i.e., not about the wrong committed of race discrimination). That would seem to suggest that the wrong of race discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Nigel Hopkins was finalised by the EAT when it upheld that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT’s ruling to send the compensation award back to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

Employment Agency

All the people in this world need employment of some sort or the other. We need jobs to live, dream, build and achieve. Employment therefore has become one crucial aspect of life. In this regard employment agencies can help us find work. These organizations find work and help one and all with their solutions and assistance in clinching the right kind of employment that an individual with his given skills can get. They offer assistance in looking for a job, maximize chances of getting a satisfactory work position and also assist us with regard to upgrading our skills in order to retain the jobs we have in hand.

Employment agencies function in the following ways:

1.These agencies become the applicant’s representative in companies where the details of the representative have been submitted. 2. The employment agency screens the candidates when job postings are posted by it on behalf of the company. 3. The agency does not take any kind of remuneration from the candidates when they apply for the job postings. It earns from the organizations that approach the agency for the candidates. 4. Employment agencies earn not from the applicants but from the employers who also hire the agencies for meeting their purpose. 5. Employers hire the agency for a certain period of time. Basing on the number of reliable employees that the company gets from the agency the remuneration or the fees for the company is settled. 6. There are certain agencies that act only as searchers for candidates. They are paid to search for candidates for the company. It so happens that the company gets a candidate on its own, but as per the understanding between the agency and the company the candidate still needs to go through the process of being registered by the agency and go through various processes of getting employed. So this clearly spells out that the agency is solely responsible to the company it has tied up with. Therefore the rumours abiding that the employment agencies are out to fleece money from the candidates is totally baseless.

Employment firms do help job seekers to find employment. However, every applicant must know that in order to find a job, it is not enough to rely solely on the agencies. If possible they need to look out for a job on their own, or advertise their skills and expertise with online agencies to increase their chances of getting a good job.

Sai People Solutions, Inc. – Providing Staffing Services across various parts of USA. As a leader in the staffing industry, we pride in our ability to deliver right staffing resources.

How To Spot employment Gaps Lies

Defining questionable “employment gaps”

Questionable employment gaps are periods on a resume or job application that can’t be verified. Some of the most popular false claims used to cover employment gaps are:

– Freelancing
– Business Owner
– Fictitious Out Of Business Company

A clever and sneaky employee can get these lies past an employer who is not conducting a careful and thorough employee background screening. Most employers do not have the in-house resources to verify these claims. When an employer conducts a background check on their own they will usually only get information on the position held, dates of employment and if the candidate is eligible for rehire.

Fortunately, even for freelance and closed businesses, there is a paper trail. Genuine freelancers and business owners must apply for a fictitious business name and a business license. This is a requirement for most cities regardless of where the work will be performed. For a freelancer, a business license is required even if he or she works from home.

Unfortunately, tracking this information can be confusing and time consuming for most personnel departments and small business owners. Getting the most accurate information is usually best left to a professional pre-employment screening firm, such as Accu-Screen, Inc. They have the resources and experience to readily search and provide the most up to date and accurate information.

Questionable “employment gaps”

Employers need to be careful not to jump to conclusions because freelance and business information may not be readily verified. When this occurs, the employer should request clarification from the job applicant. An employer should ask for references from past clients, projects worked on and milestones. Most freelancers and business owners should be able to give you business references, detailed information on projects and accomplishments.

Similarly, for a situation where a business is no longer operating, a job seeker should be able to provide verification of employment. Verification can include paystubs, tax return, offer of employment letter or proof of any type of recognition received, while employed at the company.

A red flag should be raised if the job seeker can’t provide additional information to verify claims of freelancing, owning a business or a company that is no longer open for business.

Problems with employees who lie about “employment gaps”

When an “employment gap” is discovered, an employer needs to be concerned about the reasons for it. Periods of employment gaps that can’t be verified may be associated with:

– Incarceration
– Involuntary termination

Some job seekers are unlucky while others are just plain deceitful. A professional employment background screening firm, such as Accu-Screen, Inc., can help get to the bottom of these issues by obtaining the most appropriate and accurate information.

When an applicant has these issues in their past or fails to report them, an employer should proceed with caution. These issues need to be handled confidentially and with diplomacy. The issue should be addressed and clarification should be reached before a job offer is made.

Online Recruitment – The Preferred Employment Route of Professionals

Surveys conducted by independent agencies show that a whopping 80 % of the graduates rely solely on online resources to search for jobs. This clearly shows the amazing popularity that online recruitment enjoys among potential employees. It is clear from the above figure that businesses who are investing in newspaper advertising to recruit graduate talent for their organizations are clearly wasting their time and money.

In another study recently conducted by an employment agency a whopping 89% of the surveyed candidates stated that they only search for jobs online and nowhere else. They have gained a clear impression that major companies use online resources exclusively for all their recruitment needs. Newspaper advertisements for jobs, they feel, do not reflect the best jobs available in the recruitment sector.

Specialist recruitment agencies claim that the number of hits they get on their online recruitment sites have increased tremendously over the last three to four years. Respondents also claim to use social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to look up corporate website updates. Fresh vacancies are usually put up by corporate on their Facebook account site through their status updates before they are made public through other sources.

Even professionals prefer searching online recruitment sites for better openings. Sectors such as Retail, Finance and Costumer Service professionals depend on online resources to search for better job prospects rather than look up vacancy sections in newspapers. In fact the tremendous response to online recruitment sites from professionals has forces some portals to launch specialized boards that list vacancies exclusively of jobs pertaining to a particular sector or category. The EngineerBoard launched by Jobsite in 2006, is one such classic example.

There are many benefits of advertising online, especially for professional job openings. Reduced costs of recruitment and less time taken to complete the hiring process are two of the major advantages. Apart from these, the application and selection process is extremely streamlined and consistent. These factors contribute highly to the success of online recruitment campaigns. Companies are also eager to communicate their organizational culture and benefits to potential employers through their online recruitment advertisements so that they are able to attract the best talent available.

Welcome to Recruitment Genius an online recruitment advertising service provider for your business. If you are ready to online recruitment for your business and want a way to find the best local candidates available then Recruitment Genius online recruitment company could well be the answer.