Casual staff are not entitled to a written statement of terms and conditions
of employment after a House of Lords ruling.
In Carmichael v National Power, the Lords overturned a Court of Appeal
verdict that two guides recruited on a "casual, as-required" basis
were employed under a contract of employment.
For more, see Employers Law, December 1999, p41.
Consultancy deal
Exult, the HR outsourcing provider which recently signed a £370m deal with
BP Amoco, has bought Gunn Partners (GPI), a provider of service centre
consulting services. GPI will become Exult’s consulting arm. It will deal with
benchmarking and the design, transition and transformation of HR processes.
Analysis, p11
Euro links demand
Demand for senior executives with pan-European responsibilities is growing
dramatically, a survey by HR consultancy William Mercer has found. More than
seven out of 10 firms said they intended hiring more "Euro-managers"
in the next 18 months. Most have been recruited for sales and marketing
positions. Two in five respondents said HR managers would be recruited for
pan-European roles.
Union deals grow
There were 75 union recognition agreements in the 10 months between January
and October 1999, TUC figures show. It is the highest number recorded for such
a period. Four in 10 unions said the impending union recognition law had been
influential in securing the deals. Half of the new agreements followed specific
recruitment campaigns by unions. The vast majority of new deals are for
collective bargaining, including pay and other terms and conditions.
Train on-the-job
Employers are wasting their money on recruitment advertising and should fix
their hiring problems by investing in on-the-job training, the London Skills
Forecasting Unit has advised. More than one in five of London’s workforce
swapped jobs last year and one in three vacancies in the capital are reported
as "hard-to-fill", because the employer cannot find suitable skills.
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Clarification
A box on employers’ duties to consult over redundancies on page eight of 14
December issue of Personnel Today stated that the consultation period must be
90 days. We would like to clarify that a period of 90 days is only required if
more than 100 staff are affected. If the number affected is between 20 and 99
the period of consultation is 30 days. No consultation is required for fewer
than 20 staff.
