Seamus McGranaghan from the employment team at O'Reilly Stewart solicitors and Christine Quinn from Legal Island discuss:

1. The Windsor Framework – does it extinguish the promised ‘Bonfire of Worker’s Rights’, in NI at least?
2. The New Vento bands – what are they and what do they mean for you?
3. Hub subscriber question – This question is put to us time and again in many ways, so we thought we’d ask Seamus for his take on the rights, wrongs and pitfalls of an edict to return to the office: “Has anyone stopped hybrid working completely within their business and got everyone back to the office five days of the week? Were there any special considerations, processes, or time frames?”

Please note that the employment law matters discussed in this webinar apply primarily to Northern Ireland. 

Recording:

Transcript

Christine:  Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Employment Law at 11," sponsored by MCS Group. MCS help people find careers that match your skill sets perfectly, as well as supporting employers to build high-performing businesses by connecting them with the most talented candidates in the market. If you are interested in finding how MCS can help you, head to www.mcsgroup.jobs.

My name is Christine Quinn and I am one of the Knowledge Team here at Legal-Island. I'm joined as usual by Seamus McGranaghan, Director at O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors. It's lovely to be back. We did have a little bit of a break there in March, but it's lovely to be back with you.

So today, we're talking about the Windsor framework. Does it extinguish the promised bonfire of workers' rights in Northern Ireland at least? And we're also looking at the new Vento bans. What are they and what do they mean for you? And then we've got one of your questions, a Hub subscriber question, regarding hybrid working.

So lovely to see you again, Seamus. Nice to be back.

Seamus:  Morning, Christine.

Christine:  We've got a few poll questions just to kick people off. So, the first poll question is on the Windsor framework. How much do you know about the Windsor framework? So, let's have a look at that. So how much do you know about the Windsor framework? "The Windsor what?" "I know it exists, but how is it relevant to my work in HR?" And "I understand how relevant it is to my work in HR". So, if you vote there. I can see everyone voting there now. We'll have a wee look, see what people are saying.

Okay, so 15% don't know what the Windsor framework is, 78% say they know it exists, but why is it relevant to HR, and 7% there saying they know how it's relevant to HR.

Now, we have been a wee bit sneaky in this one, haven't we, Seamus, because the Windsor framework really . . . We're talking about it today, but it's also tied up very much with Brexit, the protocol, the Good Friday Agreement. And all those kind of important things intersect, really. So are you surprised at what the poll results are, Seamus?

Seamus:  I mean, I think it's encouraging absolutely that we've a big percentage there that know it exists and that they understand. But the overriding part there is that people are not sure how it is going to affect HR and the wider aspect of the protocol, the Brexit situation, and then the circumstances that we have bringing us around to this bonfire of rights that is due to happen at the end of this year and where all this fits in and how Northern Ireland is going to work in relation to all of that. So, not surprised there at all in relation to the vast majority of people not being clear about what the situation is.

And I don't think that we're going to find any quick solutions to that today at all, Christine. We're not going to have a solid answer for people, and I think that it is one that we're going to have to keep our eye on over the next lot of months. But that's why we're flagging it up at this point and trying to get some discussion in and around it.

Christine:  Brilliant. Thanks, Maria. Let's have a little look at the second poll. It is around our third question, which was our listener question. Is hybrid or working from home negatively impacting the culture in your workplace? We've got "yes, communication is tricky and new recruits are struggling", or "no, the culture has improved", and finally, "culture is the same as before".

So at Legal-Island, we've been getting a lot more questions about people seem to . . . The kind of honeymoon period of everyone loving hybrid and working from home seems to be coming to an end from the questions we're getting. And I'm just wondering are other people finding it difficult?

So, we've got a very, very even split. We've got a three-way split, Seamus. I don't think that I could have predicted that one. What about you?

Seamus:  Yeah, I'm surprised at that. I'm surprised in some ways, and I suppose not in others. It's very evenly split there. It's a third each in relation to the responses that have come back. And I think that that is right. It's back to business and I'm getting a lot of queries in relation to issues arising around the hybrid working.

And I think a lot of those come from, Christine, a place of concern that employers are having around the flexibility of the hybrid working and the needs of the business, and issues certainly arising around that and maybe some frustrations arising from both sides, from both the employer side and from the employee side.

I suspect, though, that it's not a situation where hybrid working is going to be going away any time soon. I think that given the clear benefits that working from home has, it is something that will stay, but it probably just need slightly more refined.

And we know that the Labour Relations Agency have a good guide there in relation to hybrid working and how it should work, and balancing off sort of workers' rights and childcare, carers, and all those sort of discriminative and protected characteristics elements in relation to working from home as well.

But it's very interesting that it's so evenly split there. I wasn't expecting that.

Christine:  Yeah, I think it tells you how difficult it is if we've got a third thinking, "No, it's great", a third saying, "No, it's awful", and a third saying, "It's exactly the same". How on earth do you square that circle? But we'll come back to that one at the end of the podcast, Seamus.

The Windsor Framework 

So, let's get into the Windsor framework. Essentially, the Windsor framework is a document that deals with trade, but it does have knock-on effects when we start to look at the Brexit Freedoms bill, the Good Friday Agreement, which of course it's the 25th anniversary. There's loads in the news about that and I think that it's actually quite a good thing because it's highlighting that we do need to keep looking back to that document. So, Seamus, what are your thoughts on it?

Seamus:  So, interestingly, for anybody that is interested, probably one that we don't need to put up on a link for, but this is the framework here. I'll try to put that into a bit more centred into the camera there. A fairly readable and digestible document and it sets out the background. So, it's just entitled "The Windsor Framework: A New Way Forward".

And I suppose to bring things back to the start, the starting point for all of this is the referendum that we had. As close as it was, there was a clear democratic vote taken. There was a decision to leave the EU. So, we had the referendum.

And then after that, we had a number of the years where things were tried to be worked out. And what we did have essentially was we had the withdrawal agreement, which was the UK's agreement with the EU in relation to its withdrawal. And then part and parcel of that, then, came along with the protocol.

And if you remember back in the days of Theresa May and all of the difficulties that were encountered, really Westminster seemed to be having huge difficulties in trying to get anything agreed. And we then went through a series of various prime ministers that this issue has brought about. And finally, then, we have our existing Prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who has really taken steps to try and resolve the issue.

So, we had the withdrawal agreement. We had the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the protocol was there to deal with Northern Ireland's position as part of the UK leaving the EU. But it was also recognising the position in Northern Ireland, its position on the island of Ireland, and the complications that a potential hard border was going to have, which is set out within the Good Friday Agreement that there are certain protections in and around all of that as well.

So, these whole issues that were bubbling and coming together, the protocol was to essentially deal with those issues and have a movable way forward.

And then we had issues that arose in relation to the protocol. And outside of all of the political aspect of it, we had serious business issues that were affecting Northern Ireland customs, VAT, regulation on our goods. I think we all know that there were certain items that we just couldn't get or we couldn't get regularly within our shops, and then all the outworkings in relation to it.

Interestingly, what we had was the UK government took a fairly firm stance. There was a negotiation period. Negotiations were not fruitful, and we had the introduction, then, of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in Westminster. This was a fairly controversial bill in the sense that there were allegations put out that the UK were reneging on a prior agreement with Europe and that they were breaking international laws and treaties that had been agreed.

And the UK's position was, "Well, look, we will do this if we have to do it. But our preferred position is that we have a negotiated outcome here in relation to the protocol", which then really just brought about the framework.

So, we had the framework sort of announced at the end of February, and there was lots of political concerns in and around what the framework would mean for Northern Ireland, and particularly where my ears were pricking up about it was what role would the EU have going forward in relation to Northern Ireland and what role would the ECJ have in relation to that. And we were hearing various concerns across the board in relation to all of that.

But to break it down, the framework is now in place. If you go on to the government website, you can get a copy of the framework. You can get a copy of all the relevant documentation that goes along with it.

And primarily, the framework is about the freedom of movement of goods. There's next to nothing in the framework at all that mentions anything to do with employment rights and things like that. So that information is all set out within the protocol.

The protocol is still there. The withdrawal agreement is still there. But what we have is the framework that is moving us through those more tricky issues and thorny issues that we had.

So, from what I can see, Christine, certainly I don't see any of this documentation raising any concerns about employment rights in Northern Ireland and what's going to happen in relation to employment rights.

And sort of my straightforward approach on this is that we have legislation in place that is going to deal with how we are going to proceed with EU law going forward. We have mentioned it many times in our prior podcasts in relation to this bonfire of rights and particularly around the Brexit Freedoms Bill, or the Retained EU Law Bill as it's known, and how that would impact. We really have to go back to that point.

But you and I were talking just before we came on, and it's maybe just not going to be as straightforward as that. There are a lot of question marks. There are a lot of issues out there that haven't been addressed. And you had mentioned even this morning that Legal-Island has up on their sort of weekly roundup the issues that are arising as part of all of this situation that's coming along.

Christine:  Yeah, if you get our Friday Roundup from Legal-Island, you'll see that the Brexit Freedoms Bill, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill as it's known, was supposed to be debated at Easter. I mean, when it was announced there was much fanfare. We did a podcast about it where I was on my soapbox for most of the time, I think. It has the capacity to be hugely troublesome and generate waves in employment law.

But they were supposed to debate it at Easter. They just quietly did not debate it, and it hasn't been scheduled again for debate. So, it makes you wonder are they going to step aside from it?

And I suppose how it links in with the framework is if the EU are going to trade with Northern Ireland, we have to have the same standard of employment rights as they do in their trading block.

So, the Brexit Freedoms Bill could wipe all our employment law off the statute book and we will not be compliant with that. We'll also not be compliant with the Good Friday Agreement, which obviously begs bigger questions about what could happen in the country.

So, it's interesting, Seamus, that they've kind of very quietly not discussed it and very quietly not scheduled it for debate again compared to the fanfare of its announcement, I think.

Seamus:  Absolutely. And just whenever I was looking at it as well, we know that there's the sunset clause within the bill, which will basically sunset all of the applicable legislation that has not been retained. So, government are to pick out the relevant parts of the EU laws or derive the EU laws that we wish to retain as our laws going forward.

I mean, if anyone listens to any of the employment podcasts out there, Daniel Barnett and all that sort of stuff, everybody is guessing about what might be retained and talking about issues. What will they do with TUPE? It could do with some refinement.

And there is an opportunity here for government, if they decide to retain, they can also revoke parts of legislation. They can amend it or they can get rid of it altogether just by simply not retaining it.

I suppose the concern for us is that this is due to happen at the end of the year. We're now into April, and that debate that was due to happen at Eastertime hasn't taken place and we're not sure what the next steps are.

Certainly, I'm coming up very short and shy in relation to information around what is happening with the proposals around retained law, who is dealing with that, what is being looked at, what are the bodies set up in relation to giving that consideration or consultation about it. So, it is interesting.

I did come across, then, that there was the Shadow Cabinet Minister, Baroness Jenny Chapman, and she raised specific concerns about Northern Ireland. And what she said was, "Look, there's no functioning government in Northern Ireland. What is going to happen to the specific legislative rights that are needed in Northern Ireland?"

And she raised a direct question with government saying, "Who is going to protect that?" Is government going to step in and put these parts of laws that need to be retained under their dashboard, as they call it, so that they are protected?

There's a severe risk here. I think that there will be elements that fall through the cracks, just as you were saying previously, too, in our prior podcast there, Christine, about that.

There was there a Labour MP, Stella Creasy, and she specifically asked the Prime Minister about that during question time. And he gave a response to say that there would be full protection provided for people in Northern Ireland and everything else.

But Jenny Chapman has come back and she said that her view is that there needs to be an amendment to the bill, and she says that it has to ensure that it avoids creating any barriers for the framework and for the framework to work. And I suppose that's those issues that we are thinking about from an employment aspect, from trading from north and south and all those issues that could potentially arise.

She had said certainly her view was that the sensible thing that the government could do would be to amend the bill so that measures can be revoked or rewritten without them just being the default of them falling off at the end of the year. And this sunset idea, that there's an element that government can take steps in order to try to do that.

I think it's around 4,000 pieces of UK law that's derived from EU law itself. That's all due to expire automatically in 2024 with this sunset provision at the end of the year. It does seem to me that there's a lot of work to be done between now and the end of the year, and how that's going to impact us as lawyers and HR advisers and where we're all going to stand with all of that. It does seem to be coming down the train tracks very, very quickly.

Christine:  Yeah, you would think they would be chatting about it by now, but it's interesting that they're not. But yeah, we'll certainly watch this space for it. It's very handy our Annual Review will be in November, so every session will be about laws that are getting binned maybe, which would be an interesting one.

Seamus:  I think that we definitely need to keep a close eye on what laws are going to be retained and looking to see if there are any revisions or amendments that are going to be proposed to existing laws that are going to be retained or what exactly is going to be binned, for a better word of it.

I do think matters have gone quiet recently, but I do suspect that the focus has been on the framework and to get that done. And now that that's done, we might see a push, or alternatively, we might have this silence retained and extensions provided to proposed legislation and all the rest.

I'm not quite sure what will happen, but it certainly is one that we need to get clarity on for ourselves here in Northern Ireland. And I suspect that that will be another push and cause for concern for trying to get things up and running again in Northern Ireland.

The New Vento Bands 

Christine:  Great, Seamus. Shall we talk about something a bit more tangible that we know is the actual law as we see it? The Vento bands have been revised. Now, they're English and Welsh, but they are persuasive here in Northern Ireland. Am I correct in saying that?

Seamus:  Yeah, absolutely. So, funny enough, I qualified in 2003 and that was the year of the case. So, Vento bands have been with me for my entire career I think really.

Vento bands come from case in 2003, Vento v The Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. This is a Court of Appeal case in England. And in the case, then, the Court of Appeal set out their guidelines for courts and tribunals to apply whenever they were assessing injury to feelings in discrimination cases.

So, you know whenever discrimination cases are brought in the tribunal, they're assessed by way of injury to feelings. And how they're assessed in that sense is that generally you will have a claimant providing evidence to a tribunal panel as to how the discrimination has impacted them and what impact it has had upon them in relation to, I suppose, personally and in other ways.

But you will normally see that . . . Certainly now you will see that through a witness statement. And then in the course of a tribunal hearing, the claimant would be cross-examined.

Lots of arguments at the time about witness statements and whether you reduce the ability for the claimant to get their points across as well in a witness statement as they would talking personally about it to a panel. But it tends to be . . . I do think I've had a case where that hasn't come out by way of oral evidence, in any event. It is always there.

So, there are assessments that are done by the tribunal. If a tribunal finds that there has been discrimination and it's brought a sense of whatever type of discrimination that it is, there are these guidelines that we have from the Vento case.

So, these have come along from the case. They're called the Vento bands. And we have a lower, a middle, and an upper band. The bands are reviewed, and they were recently reviewed, the 2023 review conducted by the President of the Employment Tribunal in England.

And we now have a situation where the lower bands work from £1,100 to £11,200, and they talk about the lower band being applicable for less serious cases of discrimination.

And you have a middle band. The middle band is £11,200 up to £33,700. And that's for more serious cases in what they say. They're serious cases, but they're not so serious that they merit the upper band.

And then we're into the upper band, which is £33,700 to £56,200, and that's for some of the most serious cases that you will see in this type of discrimination. And there are exceptional cases that go above and beyond that £56,200.

I think from my practice, recently we have seen some of the larger cases that have come through with elements of discrimination. But whenever you look at the decisions themselves, if there's large monies that have been awarded . . .

The recent cases there that have come through the tribunal have been highlighted in the media. When you look at that, a large part of the award can be for the unfair dismissal, and then you're looking at maybe pension loss and things like that that come through. And then there's the discrimination element. So, it's always worthwhile to be looking to see the breakdown of the awards that are given.

But it's tended to be my experience anyway . . . and I know, Christine, yours is slightly different given your practice for a long time was over in England. But I think probably in Northern Ireland the awards are more conservative, more modest than what you might see and read about across in England.

Christine:  Yeah, I think that's right. And I think it's quite subjective. It is good to have the guidelines, because in the Republic of Ireland, they don't have the guidelines and I find that more problematic in how you can justify an award.

I mean, when I got claimants coming to me initially, everybody thinks they're the upper band. Everybody does. And that's completely understandable. If you've had somebody say one racist thing to you, that can impact you deeply and you do think that. So, it is quite difficult to have to explain to a client, "Well, actually, a one-off incident of racial harassment is likely to be in the lower bound".

It's a bit of a sledgehammer to some people, isn't it, Seamus? It's somebody saying, "That's actually not that bad", when they felt it extremely deeply.

Seamus:  Yeah, absolutely. And the types of things that a panel will have to consider . . . I mean, it's not an easy job at all. And as you say, certainly when you read witness statements and you hear evidence and where the panel have specifically asked the claimant about the impact and the injury to feelings that they've suffered, there's no doubt that they're human beings and they will take that on board.

And then there are certain things that they have to give consideration to. So, some of that is they have to look at was the discrimination deliberate? How serious was the discrimination and how long did it last? Was it a one-off event or was it a series of events? Was it repetitive? They'll look at that.

And they'll look at how the respondent behaved after the discriminative act. Did they move quickly to put an end to it, to ensure that it didn't happen? Did they then look at disciplinary action as a result of it? Did they look at training, and did they review their policies and procedures to make sure that there are preventative steps from this happening again? So, in other words, if there are lessons learnt from things that have arisen in the workplace.

Look, these things do arise, and often they're quite novel. With the internet and social media and all, we've had a whole slew of new things that have happened, and making sure that there are appropriate policies and procedures in place to try to deal with those.

Certainly if anyone has had cases that have been supported by the Equality Commission or by the Law Centre, that's one of the key elements of the case, that they will look to do, if you can resolve the case with them. They will also look to bring along the lessons that have been learnt. They'll want to assist the employer in looking at maybe a review of their policies and procedures or training and things like that as well.

And particularly, as well, the tribunal will look at "What is the effect of the discrimination upon the person or the claimant?" They might look for medical evidence also, and medical evidence might be available for that.

So, sometimes you will see the GP notes and records where the GP has recorded that there have maybe been certain impacts, certain ailments that have arisen as a result of that.

Sometimes there's a lot of anxiety and depression. Medication can be provided. Evidence would show that there has been a more severe impact if there is medication. How long has the person had to take the medication for? Are they still on the medication? Was medication increased? Elements of that, and if the person has had to undertake counselling or CBT, those sorts of things as well.

So, generally, if you're coming from a claimant side of it, you're maybe trying to support the impact with medical evidence then as well.

But they'll also look at other things. They'll look at the vulnerability of the employee, if they already suffer from a medical condition, if it's a disability discrimination case. What is the impact of the discrimination upon them? Has it eroded matters, trust, and confidence, all those sorts of things?

Whether the employee has suffered stress, anxiety, or damage even to their personal relationships. And in a lot of these cases, you'll notice that family issues arise, issues with partners and with siblings and children, and things like that.

And they'll also look at the degree of hurt and the distress and the upset that's been caused as well. So, they have to bring all this into consideration whenever they're looking at the award that they might make on a discrimination case where there's injury to feelings. They weigh all that up and then they probably look at it from a point of view of, "Where does this fall within the range?"

And then you'll see within each range that we went through there, there's quite a broad spectrum of what can be awarded as well.

But the other thing then that you'd mentioned, Christine, was just about whether it has an impact in Northern Ireland.

So, I think as practitioners here, we all absolutely give consideration to the Vento bands. I look back at a recent case that I had defended, and I can see there that there's specific mention within that to the injury to feelings aspect. They talked about the middle band of Vento, and that was our tribunal here.

So, although it's a Court of Appeal decision in England, and we obviously have our own Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland, which is where we take our mainstay of decisions on whether they're binding upon us, there is no doubt that this is a well-established case that our tribunals have cognisance of and they give consideration to also.

And one other thing that I wanted to mention was . . . I think maybe you have the case there as well. There is a 2008 case. That's going back some time, and it's two Polish workers that were working in a factory in Belfast, Urbanska and Kopowska. I've probably butchered both of those names, so apologies. But I think we are putting them up on the link there where people can have a look.

And those were cases where the tribunal found that there had been really serious issues arising in relation to discrimination. These were employees that were fundamentally treated differently. They were given different duties to do. They had to clean floors and they had to clean the toilets. These duties and responsibilities were not given to other employees, and they were treated badly. They were kicked and spat on and all of those sorts of things.

It's not easy reading the decision, but it's an interesting one. And you can see, then, the scope of how the tribunal apply their mind to the compensation that was awarded. I think in total the compensation was coming out on each of them . . . Certainly, one of them was for £52,000.

But again, you can read the decision and you'll see that that's not all about just the discrimination element and that they're awarded for their injury to feelings. There are other claims involved in there as well, but it gives a good idea of . . .

Now, it's going back to 2008. It's going back a while now. Fresh in my memory, though. That goes to show you my age. Not that I was involved in any way in the cases.

But going back to that timeframe . . . And things will have moved on. They do look at the Ventos obviously, they do increase the values of them, but it gives an idea of how the tribunal will look at that locally here in Northern Ireland and what they look at. There are loads of cases out there to look at, but that's always one that sticks in my mind.

Christine:  Yeah. Maria has just dropped the case into the chat there for anyone that wants to click through and read about that. Also, the new Vento bands are in the hand-out section of GoToWebinar, so you can have a look at that too.

The rights, wrongs and pitfalls of an edict to return to the office

Brilliant, Seamus. I'm just mindful of the time. Let's jump to our Hub subscriber question. The question we have is . . . So, I picked out this question because we get it in many, many forms at Legal-Island, at different events. People are coming up and saying kind of the same thing. So, I think this question kind of sums it up.

Has anyone stopped hybrid working completely within their business and got everyone back to the office five days of the week? Were there any special considerations, processes, or timeframes?

Now, I have to say, Seamus, when I read the question and each time someone asks me a similar question, I always think, "Why do you want to do it?" That's really the crux of the issue, isn't it?

Seamus:  Yeah, that's it. And I suppose it's maybe in our working DNA that we all view the office as our place of work, and certainly maybe for business owners or managers within the business. It's moving away from that aspect of getting everybody back into the office. They're not productive at home. We need to get them back in.

In one of our recent podcasts, we did discuss a lot of this. I talked about it at the Annual Review back in November, and some of the statistics were hugely interesting. You've very different individuals and different individuals with different views as to how we work.

And if you look at Mr Rees-Mogg over in England and what his view was, and look at Elon Musk's view, it was that everybody had to get back to their place of work. Various individuals and characters that would be well known in the business world that seemed to be pushing for a return to work.

And yet whenever it was looked at and looked at productivity, looked at staff retention, and give consideration to better work-life balance, all of those positive steps keep a happier workforce. A happier workforce is more motivated.

You could go round and round and round in relation to how all this is playing out, but the three main things that I could think of and pick out where this . . . If you're in the office place, there's an access to support. There are people around, you can ask questions, you can learn from others by simply being in their vision, and that's harder to do remotely via Teams. And there's that element that there's a loss of support happening in relation to it.

That may be very arguable for anyone that is coming into a job new, or newly qualified if you're in professions, those sorts of things.

The office morale one . . . and Christine, it was really interesting to me that that was one of the aspects that you picked out in relation to your query, because there's this aspect of office morale. You need people back in the office because there are no personal relationships anymore. People don't see each other. They don't chat. They don't go for their tea break together and all of that, and that there's a loss in relation to office morale.

If you have a full workforce that allows employees to socialise and build relationships together, they can work as a team and communicate better. That's the argument around that.

And then others just are of the view that they simply believe that there's an increase in efficiency and productivity. If they're in the office full time and they are contributing, it's that visualisation. People can see you working and they know you're working. And we've talked about that before, about how that is really not how productivity should be looked at.

You could have somebody in a job doing 40 hours a week when in actual fact they can do it in 25 hours at home, and then look at what they can do and accomplish in their spare time, whether it's business development or whatever aspect it is.

Certainly a fair question is why somebody would want to do that. I think that that was the lesson that we learnt through the pandemic, that this is something that we can do and it's creating a better work-life balance for people.

Christine:  Yeah, we've actually got a comment in here, Seamus, saying, "Often it's a lack of trust or management skills by managers rather than any lack of productivity". And I think that if you're thinking, "We need everyone back in the office", you need to take a pause and think, "Why do we need it?" Maybe the managers need trained in how to manage people remotely better, or maybe you need some days in the office, but not every day. I think you really need to sit and break it down first.

I mean, shortly after the pandemic . . . I loved working from home, absolutely. Once I was allowed to go about my business again and see people as normal . . . I loved working from home, but now I have to say I'm one of the people that is falling out of love with it slightly because I miss my colleagues in the office. I actually love getting a day in the office, and I think you do get a lot of different type of work done.

I think the argument is if you're going into the office to sit and read emails, is that a good use of time? But if you're going into work to collaborate and meet people face to face, maybe that's a better use of time.

So, if you are in this scenario where you want to roll back the hybrid working or the remote working, first thing is why are you doing it, and whether those concerns are legitimate or could be fixed in a different way.

At the minute, we still have a massive recruitment and retention problem, which I suppose also feeds into it. At Legal-Island, we've had lots of new people, just like every other company, and it's the new people that are finding it difficult to work with the old hands a bit and they do need more face time. But if you're continuously going to lose people because you're going, "Right, everyone back to the office", it's kind of a vicious circle, isn't it, Seamus?

Seamus:  Yeah, absolutely. We were amused before we came on just trying to figure out where we were in relation to . . . You hear about all these generational positions and the expectations for different generations when it comes to work. I think that Gen Z is that 1997 to 2013, so they're coming into the workplace and their expectation is hugely different as to what it would have been 5 years ago, 10 years ago.

Are you going to have the ability to recruit the talent that you want to recruit if you're going to have a rigid policy that everybody has to be in the office all the time, that you can't work from home, and there's no hybrid in place to do that? I think that that is a greater concern.

I think people's expectations have absolutely changed, and we are going through a phase where we're having to really carefully consider the workplace that we have, how it's presented before a recruitment exercise, what people can see about your business, because they will go online and they will look at your website. They'll want to know.

I mean, we talked about this previously about what is the ethos of the office, what causes do they support, all that forward-looking stuff that people can see. But they'll want to know about what the culture is in the office itself. And if you're starting off a relationship where you're saying, "No, I need you in the office because I don't trust you to be at home", that's not a great way to start it off.

And I suppose the opposite argument is that there could be an inability to bring about a place of work that somebody really loves because they love coming to work and they love talking to their colleagues. They love meeting their colleagues. They like getting inspiration from their colleagues. All of those sorts of aspects are possibly lost in the working from home, which is why we're at that hybrid aspect.

But I think from recruitment and retention, people are always looking for better and for more. That's how it works. And I'm not saying that that's always about money, but when it comes to work, they want to be happy. They want to feel satisfied in relation to their work. But they don't want to be in a position where life is just all about work as well. So, that needs to be looked at.

And certainly, even within our office, we had to look at how attractive we were going through recruitment exercises. Why would somebody want to come and work in our place of work? What's good about it? You do have to give consideration to all of that.

And it will vary from industry to industry. There's no doubt about that. But it is a situation where people . . . I mean, if somebody can get a role working on a hybrid basis and they're travelling from Ballymena into Belfast every day and it's going to cut down on their costs and it's going to help their work-life balance and things like that, that's the job that they're going to look for. They're not going to want to take a job where they're based in the office from 9-to-5 every day.

Christine:  And so, for the people out there that are listening and saying, "Okay, we've considered all that. We know that the culture is suffering in the office. We know productivity is suffering. We absolutely have to start dialling it back", how would you go about it and not get yourself into hot water?

Seamus:  The main thing I suppose, talking about hot water, is taking the temperature in the office. I think that open communication with colleagues and how it's presented . . . I think if it's just simply, "Everybody's to be back into the office next week", that's just not going to work for people. There needs to be discussion about it.

If there is a requirement to start bringing people in more, I think that needs to be explained to employees as to why that is necessary. And again, working with employees around how that might look and how you can compromise in relation to maybe the days that they're going to be in the office and days that they're not.

But ultimately, there has to be a justification for it. If the justification is, "Well, look, I just don't know what you're doing at home", what you should be doing is looking at the productivity, looking at the markers of productivity. And if there are issues around that employee, discussing it with them, whether informally or whether you have to go down a more formal route where you're identifying performance issues. That's how it should be done properly and fairly.

And I suppose that consistent aspect, as well, is another important point. One of the things that seemed to really frustrate and annoy employees is where they're not treated fairly or the same as everybody else. They're coming up with concerns that, "This person gets away with more than I do", or, "I'm at home working and they're in the office. They're doing nothing but talking all day". It's all those arguments that come about.

But I think that you do need to be careful in and around looking at where there have been requests for flexible working, and that is part and parcel of the hybrid working agreement that is in place. Once you have that flexible working agreement in place, it is permanent. So if you're going to look to amend that, you need to be consulting with a number of staff about that and really get consent in relation to it.

And then the other side of it is always just watching out for people with protected characteristics and making sure that you are making reasonable adjustments.

And where you have made a reasonable adjustment that is working on a hybrid basis, that you're not pulling back from that and you're not then creating a difficulty in relation to potential less favourable treatment or something along those lines because of the person's disability. And that applies equally across the board.

Christine:  Brilliant, Seamus. I'm just looking at the time. We have come to the end of our webinar today. Time flies. So, thank you very much everybody for coming along.

There are a few upcoming events at Legal-Island I'd just like to point out to you. You've got the HR Conference at the end of the month, 26 April. I've been involved in writing that and it's going to be a great conference. Some of the speakers are absolutely fantastic.

It's kind of all things women in the workplace. We've got Pregnant Then Screwed, the pressure group, coming to talk to us. We've got Robert Baker, who's a great feminist and ally, and he's going to talk about how gender balance is great for men as well as women. So, it's going to be a great conference.

And we've also got our NI Essentials of Employment Law, if anybody's got some new recruits or anyone new to HR that might need some help with that.

We've got some discount for you as well. Love a bit of discount. We've got our GDPR Training eLearning course. You've got a 50% discount on that. So, have a look out for that in the follow-up email.

We've also got some other . . . Yeah, there we go. Find us on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcasts. You can search for "Employment Law at 11".

We will see you again next month. It'll be the first Friday of May we'll see you.

Have a little lookout for us on LinkedIn as well, and drop us a friend request or whatever it's called on LinkedIn. I'm very uncool.

But anyway, thank you all very much for listening. Thanks again, Seamus, for joining me, and we'll see you all again next month.

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