One of the initial considerations of a potential employment tribunal claim is whether the employee has the relevant period of continuous employment or “length of service” to bring the claim. Generally, an employee needs two years’ continuous employment in order to accrue key statutory rights including unfair dismissal, flexible working or shared parental leave.
At present, an employee’s period of continuous service is broken by any one week ending with Saturday that does not count towards continuity or any period of time during which the employee was not working under a legal employment contract. In respect of future redundancy pay entitlement, an employee’s period of continuous employment is broken once the employee is in receipt of a statutory redundancy payment.
A break of one week in employment can be common for casual employees, resulting in it being difficult for them to accrue the key statutory rights mentioned above.
The government announced in the Good Work Plan that it will legislate to change this to four weeks to allow more employees to accrue employment rights with a minimum length of service requirement.
If you require any further information about the proposed employment law reforms, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the team on 0113 322 9222.