An employer is generally under a duty to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled employee under Section 20 of the Equality Act, if they know or ought to reasonably know, that the individual in question is disabled and likely to be placed at a substantial disadvantage because of their disability.

In this podcast, our employment experts look at the issues that employers need to consider and how far they need to go to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace to accommodate a disabled employee. Hosted by Partner and Head of Employment, Rustom Tata, with employment solicitor Lydia Goodman joining the discussion to share their expert insights and provide practical tips for employers and HR managers.

Employers often have to deal with situations where an employee has committed acts of, or is facing allegations of, misconduct and there is the potential for a lot to go wrong. It is important that the employer gets the process right when dealing with issues of misconduct as the consequence of failing to do so can be damaging to the employer and could lead to them facing unfair dismissal claims, reputational damage and high settlement costs.

In this latest podcast, we consider 10 common pitfalls made by employers when dealing with misconduct and how best to avoid them.

Hosted by Partner and Head of Employment, Rustom Tata, with employment experts Hollie Ryan and Eloise Brennan joining the discussion to share their expert insights and provide practical tips for HR professionals.

Conflicts arising in respect of different protected characteristics have come to the fore in a number of recent high profile cases, particular in the context of sex, sexual orientation and gender critical beliefs.

In this podcast, we discuss recent cases in this area, including Higgs v Farmor’s School and Maya Forstater v CGD Europe. An area which is also a cause for concern is the difficulties employers have in policing workplace conversations and adopting a zero tolerance approach to conversations that may cause offence to others.

The sensitivities surrounding many of the reported employment tribunal cases have led to mainstream news headlines and perhaps this is one of the reasons that employees are becoming much more aware of their rights to voice their views and the potential limitations on employers to limit discussions and moderate behaviours.

Conduct of employees causing offence to others is often dealt with by disciplinary action but since the Equality Act introduced religion or belief as a protected characteristic in 2003 employers have had to be mindful that any disciplinary action or other treatment does not amount to discrimination based on that individual holding that protected belief. Initially most cases focused on religion as the definition of “belief” was less clear.

Speakers for this episode include Employment Partners, Rebecca Thornley-Gibson and Rustom Tata.