Home Work (W8)
1. Research and write a range of employment legislation, discuss employment rights and
responsibilities. Please follow the academic format for your documentation.
EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION
Employment legislation refers to a body of laws that regulate the relationships between
employers and employees. These laws are generally designed to protect workers.
1. Statutory rights and responsibilities
2. Procedures and documents within the organization.
3. Sources of information and advice about employment rights and responsibilities.
4. About the occupation and organization.
5. Occupations and career pathways.
6. Representative bodies relevant to you and your organization.
STATUTORY RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
A range of statutory responsibilities and rights under employment law, and that employment
can be affected by other legislation as well.
• Employment contracts are legally binding on both the employer and employee and
serve to protect each other’s rights and responsibilities. The legal parts of the contract
can be in a variety of forms, including:
➢ Verbal agreement
➢ In a written contract (or similar document)
➢ In an employee handbook or on a company notice board.
➢ In an offer letter from your employer.
➢ Required by law (for example, your employer must pay you at least the
minimum wage.)
➢ In a collective agreement.
➢ Implied terms.
• Anti-Discrimination
➢ Recruitment, Employment terms and conditions, Pay and benefits, Training,
Promotion and transfer opportunities, Redundancy, Dismissal.
• Age-Discrimination
➢ Discriminate against you, in certain circumstances, after the working
relationship has ended.
• Disability-Discrimination
➢ Ask questions, except in certain circumstances, about your health before
offering you a job.
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• Working hours, rest breaks and holiday entitlements.
PROCEDURES AND DOCUMENTS WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION.
1. Identify the process
Identify the process you are documenting and give it a clear name and objective.
2. Place boundaries
Document the start and end points of the process. What triggers it to begin, and how do you know
when it’s over?
Example: the process might start when you realize your app’s home screen looks
dated and end when you send the updated version to all customers.
3. List the expected result
What should happen at the end of the process? This might be something like, “The finished app
rolls out to end users,” or “The software update pushes to all registered users without hiccups.”
4. Detail the inputs
Note what materials and equipment are necessary to complete the process. This could be as
simple as your assembly line and robotic assistants, or as complex as your legacy servers, private
cloud and multiple platforms.
5. Walk through the process
You can brainstorm how it might work, but it’s better to perform the entire process from beginning
to end. For example, you might want to walk through the sales funnel to see if any elements were
left out during the mock-up phase. Remember, if a button isn’t on the wireframe, engineering won’t
build it!
6. Determine who is involved
List the people who play a role in completing the process. This typically encompasses only those
who perform the task, but you can also note who the decision makers are for that process.
7. Utilize your process documentation system
Carefully copy all of your notes into your process documentation system. Review all the details to
make sure you didn’t miss anything.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION AND ADVICE ABOUT EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS
AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
1. Internal Sources
➢ What you should know:
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Example: The range of information made available to you by your employer on
matters relating to your employment and working practice, Where this
information can be obtained.
➢ Over to you: You will need to know who to go to for information and advice in
your organization. This can be on a range of topics related to
•Employment and personnel issues
•Training
•Additional learning support
•Assessment
2. External Resources
➢ What you should know:
Other information sources that may be available outside the workplace, what
they provide and how to use them.
➢ Over to you:
You will need to know where to go for information outside your organization.
This can be obtained from a range of sources, such as:
• The Citizens Advice Bureau
• Trade unions
• Access to Work contact centers.
ABOUT THE OCCUPATION AND ORGANIZATION
• The type of organization you work for, in terms of the following factors:
✓ The number of people they employ
✓ The type of market in which they operate
✓ Whether there are any issues of public concern that affect your organization
and/or industry.
• The types of changes that have been taking place in your area of business over recent
years, which have affected individual’s working practices and the way in which
organizations operate.
• The impact, if any, that these changes have had on your organization and the way in
which your job role is carried out.
• How the organization is structured.
• The different ways in which organizations carry out different tasks, such as finance,
operations, personal, marketing, health and safety etc.
• The different ways in which the tasks outlined above may be split between different
people, department and/or sites.
• What steps you should take to try to ensure you interact effectively with colleagues
and contacts in the workplace and why this is important to the organization.
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OCCUPATIONS AND CAREER PATHWAYS
OCCUPATIONS
• The occupations may be very specialized to a particular industry.
Example: Car manufacturing, Website design, Banking
• The requirements and characteristics of typical career paths associated with your
occupation.
• The main stages and requirements of the development programmed you are pursuing
and what training and development opportunities your organization provides in
relation to this.
CAREER PATHWAYS
• There are four types of career paths.
✓ knowledge-based
✓ skill-based
✓ entrepreneur-based
✓ freelance
• Every kind of career path caters to a specific set of qualifications that help you
perform your job.
• Knowledge-based career paths allow you to use the knowledge you acquired over time
to do your job.
Employees in human resources, marketing, and accounting all follow a knowledge-
based career path. Other examples include IT professionals and engineers.
• Skill-based professions need an understanding of how a specific job function operates.
These are often physical, hands-on, or service skills. Many of these roles fall in the
construction industry, as well as performers, artists, and restaurant chefs.
• An entrepreneur solves a problem or a specific need by selling their own product or
service. An entrepreneur can work independently or start a company and hire
employees. Many startups, including Better Up, began with an entrepreneur solving a
problem for consumers.
• People hire independent contractors (or freelancers) to perform a specific job or
project.
Freelancers offer many services, including graphic design, consulting, home repair,
and photography.
REPRESENTATIVE BODIES RELEVANT TO YOU AND YOUR ORGANIZATION
REPRESENTATION
• Within any industry, there is a range of representative bodies that promote the views
of a group of people with common interests.
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• The representative bodies collect the views of their members and act as their collective
voice in discussions with other groups on issues that affect them all. Representation
occurs both within an organization and in other bodies. Representation between
different bodies can occur at local and national levels as well.
• You should know:
✓ If there are any trade unions relevant to your occupation, in representing and
protecting the common interests of employees.
✓ If there are any professional bodies relevant to your occupation.
✓ If there are any regulatory bodies relevant to your industry and occupation,
Example: The British Medical Association
✓ The name and role of the standards setting organization relevant to your
occupation.
• You will need to know the names and roles of your standards setting organization, any
professional/representative or regulatory bodies, trade unions, consumer groups and
employer organizations.
EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Main Responsibilities of Employees
Employees have responsibilities towards their employers, even if they work part time or
don’t have a written contract with their employers.
These are the main responsibilities of employees:
• to personally do the work they were hired to do
• to do their work carefully and seriously (In some cases, they could be fired or
disciplined if they’re often late for work, or if they’re absent too often or for
no good reason.)
• to avoid putting themselves or others in danger
• to follow their employer’s instructions (There are some exceptions. For example, if an
employer asks an employee to do something dangerous or illegal, the
employee doesn’t have to follow these instructions.
• to be loyal and honest
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When Employees Don’t Respect Their Responsibilities
If employees don’t respect their responsibilities, the employer is allowed to take certain
actions:
• discipline employees, such as giving a written warning, or suspending them
• take other action against employees, such as giving a letter evaluating their
performance, or demoting them (that is, giving them a lower job)
• fire employees if they do something very serious, such as stealing from the office
• take employees to court to make them pay an amount of money (for example, if the
employee quits without telling the employer in advance, or
if the employee quits before the date in the employment contract)
• take employees to court to stop them from doing things that are harmful to the
business
Employers’ Responsibilities Towards Employees
These are the main ones:
• Employers must give their employees a place to work and make sure they have access
to it. They must give them the tools, equipment and other things they need to
do their work.
• Employers must pay their employees the salary and benefits they agreed
to, including vacation, paid holidays and other types of holidays.
• Employers must make sure that working conditions protect their employees’ physical
and psychological health and safety.
• In some cases, employers must give their employees written notice that their contracts
are ending or that they are being laid off. Note that employers can pay employees a
sum of money instead of giving the notice.
• Employers must treat their employees with respect. They must make sure their
employees are not harassed or discriminated against.
• Employers must take steps when they know, or reasonably should know, that
employees are exposed to domestic, family or sexual violence in the workplace. They
must do this whether the employee is working in the office or working from home.
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NOTE: If an employee signs a written contract with the employer, it might place more
responsibilities on the employer than the ones required by law.
Example: An employment contract might say that the employer has to pay
employees who have to use their own cars to do their jobs. Or
the contract might also say that the employer has to pay back their employees for travel or
entertainment expenses if they show their receipts.
