I am indebted to Stuart ‘The Brand’ Baggs, rising star of The Apprentice on BBC1 for being the inspiration behind the headline of this post.  If you’re not a fan of The Apprentice, click here for more details.

To give you an idea, this David Brent wannabe has uttered ‘Everything I touch turns to sold’ as well as ‘I am not a cliché’

Very entertaining.  Anyway, individuals as brands was not something anyone outside celebrity (Jordan) and football (David Beckham) circles considered until recently.  But something has changed that, and it is LinkedIn.

Founded in 2003, LinkedIn now has 80 million registered users, 4 million of them in the UK.  That is a huge percentage of the professionals in the country.

LinkedIn lets you put up a personal page – a live CV.  Mine is here

At the heart of Linked in is the power of the network.  To give you an idea, my small network of around 300 connects me to over 7 million professionals around the world, via three hops.  Most people are connected to their suppliers, customers, colleagues, school and college friends and people they meet at networking events.

LinkedIn has been welcomed by the recruitment community as it provides many excellent tools to search for candidates and fill vacancies.  Jobs are also forwarded around people’s networks, so they reach the right people.  In fact at Deminos we now use it as the main method of filling our current vacancies.

So, Linked in provides the best way to promote and build the brand of YOU.  When you change jobs you keep your existing network and add more colleagues, suppliers and customers from your new job.  And everyone keeps their own contact information up to date, so you can always keep in touch.

I would like to get to know my readers better, so please feel free to link with me now.  Near the top right, click on ‘View full profile’ and then ‘Add to your network’.  And, if you’re not yet on Linked In now is the perfect time to join.

Regards,

Neil Atkinson

Tel: 020 7870 1090

PS. I look forward to meeting you both virtually and in the real world!

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Statutes fixing wages and/or hours of work have existed in this country since the 14th century (the 1349 Ordinance of Labourers and the 1351 Statute of Labourers both made rules on the subject).  The 1998 Working Time Regulations, as amended, are therefore just the latest set of rules.  They were made only after the UK lost a legal battle with the European Commission, the latter having somewhat cheekily, after opposition from the UK in the early 1990′s, switched the then proposed Working Time Directive from being introduced as a social policy measure requiring unanimity to introducing it as a health and safety measure which required only a majority vote to be enforceable on all Member States.

The Working Time Regulations continue to give rise to problems, notably in relation to rest breaks and holiday entitlement. Two recent cases are noteworthy.

In one,  the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal has ruled that a nurse whose rest breaks were taken on site but away from the place where she performed her duties, and during which she was not to be interrupted save in exceptional circumstances, did count as rest breaks for the purposes of the Regulations.  The nurse had argued that the rest breaks counted as time spent on call which, following a series of rulings by the European Court of Justice, would count as working time.  Those who would like to read the full judgment can click here on Martin v Southern Health and Social Care Trust.

In the second case the Inner House of the Scottish Court of Session (equivalent to the English Court of Appeal) has held that there is no rule that entitlement to annual holiday must come out of working time.  Any other conclusion could produce absurd results in the case of “shut-down trades” and of teachers who, for example, could insist on taking holiday during term time if the Regulations were interpreted to mean that a worker has the right to insist on holidays being taken during working time.  Similarly, if that were the correct interpretation professional footballers would be entitled to take annual leave during the football season rather than during the summer break.

This case was brought not by teachers or professional footballers but by offshore workers on oil and gas rigs in the North Sea.  Typically they worked 2 weeks offshore, followed by a two week “field break” on land. Their employer (which, incidentally, was the company involved in the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster earlier in 2010) required them to take their annual paid holiday during these “field breaks”.  The effect was that the workers would work off shore for a full 26 weeks each year as had been originally intended.  The workers argued, however, that on a correct interpretation of the Working Time Regulations they were entitled to take their annual leave out of the time when they would otherwise be at work - the effect being, in essence, that they would work off shore for only 22 weeks each year. Although they won at the original tribunal, the workers lost this argument both in the EAT and most recently at the Court of Session.

Interestingly, given the history noted above of how the EU Working Time Directive came to be passed, one of the points on which the Court of Session focussed was that the Directive was a health and safety measure.  As such it was designed to ensure that workers get sufficient rest. Bearing this in mind the Court of Session ruled that on a proper interpretation of the British Regulations annual holiday cannot come out of “rest periods” as defined but can come out of (in this case) field breaks and that this is consistent with the EC Directive being a health and safety measure.

Those who would like to read the full judgment can click here on Russell & Ors v Transocean International Resources Ltd & Ors

Call Deminos on 020 7870 1090 or visit http://www.deminos.co.uk

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The Bribery Act 2010 introduces new criminal offences in connection with offering or receiving bribes.  It also abolishes the old common law offences of “bribery and embracery”.  The main new offences are those of offering a bribe, accepting a bribe, bribing a foreign public official and (importantly for this employment law newsletter) a new corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery. The Act also provides for senior officers to be guilty of an offence committed by a body corporate if it was committed with their consent or connivance – turning a blind eye may have been possible for Lord Nelson two centuries ago but it is unlikely to wash under the Bribery Act 2010.

According to an article in the Guardian shortly before the new Act received Royal Assent (the Guardian, 25th March 2009  “Bribery Bill finally reaches parliament”) only one UK company was prosecuted for foreign bribery during Labour’s 12 years in power.

The Bribery Act 2010 is not yet in force.  It was originally expected that it would come into force on 1st October 2010 but commencement has been postponed until, probably, April 2011.  Penalties for breach are severe – companies and individuals can face an unlimited fine.  Individuals can also be sentenced to up to 10 years’ in prison and be disqualified from holding directorships for up to 15 years.

Under section 7 of the 2010 Act “A relevant commercial organisation (“C”) is guilty of an offence … if a person (“A”) associated with C bribes another person intending (a) to obtain or retain business for C, or (b) to obtain or retain an advantage in the conduct of business for C”.

Importantly, it is a defence for C to prove that “adequate procedures” were in place designed to prevent persons associated with C from undertaking such conduct (there are also defences if the accused can prove that the otherwise forbidden conduct was necessary for the proper exercise of any function of an intelligence service, or the proper exercise of any function of the armed forces when engaged on active service).  In September 2010 the Ministry of Justice launched a public consultation on proposed formal “guidance on preventing bribery” to be followed in the New Year with publication of formal guidance as to what will be “adequate procedures”.  The consultation closes on 8th November.

The consultation document explains that “The guidance sets out six principles, each followed by commentary and explanation. The guidance is not prescriptive and is not a one-size-fits-all document. The question of whether an organisation had adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery in the context of a particular prosecution is a matter that can only be resolved by the courts taking into account the particular facts and circumstances of the case”.

The six principles are listed as:

• Risk assessment (keeping up to date with bribery risks in “your sector and market”);
• Top level commitment (establishing a culture in which bribery is unacceptable);
• Due diligence (knowing your business partners);
• Clear, practical and accessible policies and procedures (including encouragement of “whistleblowing” where appropriate);
• Effective implementation (practising what you preach);
• Monitoring and Review (including consideration of whether external review is appropriate).

Call Deminos on 020 7870 1090 or visit http://www.deminos.co.uk

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