Weekly Issue 497

Impact of career breaks

According to research published last week, the careers of most professional women take a nosedive after returning to work from a career break.
The study, which was carried out by PwC in conjunction with the 30% Club and Women Returners found that over three in five of the 427,000 female professionals who are currently on a career break are likely to return to the workforce in lower-skilled or lower-paid roles.

Commission payments

The Court of Appeal has upheld the tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal decisions in British Gas Trading Ltd v Lock and anor that the Working Time Regulations (WTR) have to be interpreted to comply with the European Working Time Directive when calculating holiday pay. That means they can include results-based commission payments.

Communication of dismissal

It is self-evident that in order to bring a claim of unfair dismissal, the claimant has to have been dismissed. In Sandle v Adecco UK Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that dismissal has to be communicated in some way to the employee (for instance, by virtue of the conduct of the employer), the most important point being that the employee is aware of it.