BA Business
Business Law and Ethics
Essay
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Essay on Employment law and Corporate Division
The essay will cover the topic of business law and ethics by stating the employment law and corporate division. It will describe the UK employment law in detail. It will state the favoritism of the employment law on either the side of the employer or the employee. It will discuss corporate social responsibility and its applicability in corporations.
The Employment law of UK ensures and safeguards the rights of both employers and employees. It provides the rules and regulations for fair and equal pay to the employees. It protects the employees from unfair dismissal and discrimination. It protects the employer’s interests and rights of the worker. It also maintains afair relationship between the employer and employee.
The law can be a little complicated as it contains various legislation that deals with the protection of employers and employees from exploitation.It helps to run the business activities smoothly. For example, the employment holidays, disciplinary rules and formal notice periods are included in the employment contract that clears any dispute related to employment holidays. It justifies the employee hiring process. It ensures equal treatment is provided to the employees in the hiring. It eliminates any type of discrimination on the basis of gender, race or disability. Every employee is treated equally in the eyes of the recruiter.
The employment law is the vast legislature that covers the whole employment relationship. It covers the legislature related to equal pay, working hours, procedures for grievances, paternity and maternity leave, types of discrimination, the procedure of redundancy, equality and diversity in the workplace and reasonable adjustments. It covers every topic that is important to maintain the employee and employer relationship.
Dismissal is a process in which the employee’s employment is ended by the business authority. The authority is anyone who has the right to dismiss the person from the employment while unfair dismissal is the termination of the employment of the worker unfairly or without any fair reason. The reason for the employment termination of an employee should be just and reasonable and proper. The procedure followed by the authority to terminate the employee should be fair. The employee should be aware of their termination and the employer should not take undue advantage of the dismissal authority. It protects the rights of the employee and safeguards the interest of the employees.
It is the duty of the employer to let the employee know the reason for the dismissal. The proper procedure must be followed by the employer before the dismissal of the employee. He should be given fair chance before its dismissal (Kuddo, 2018). If the person has been employed for two or more continuous years, so he or she has the right to bring the claim against the employer or business in case of unfair dismissal.The person may be dismissed unfairly by the employerby Whistleblowing, proclaiming the legal rights, request for paternity and maternity leave, raising the issues of health and safety, being part of a Trade Unionbut it is not limited to the specified conditions. In case of health and safety concerns, the employee is protected from the first day of employment.
The role of the employee is mentioned in the written agreement which is known as the employment contract. The agreement is between the employer and employee that states the job role of an individual. It outlines the responsibilities and duties of the employee and along with that it also states the working conditions, working environment and the rights of the employee.
Discrimination in the workplace is prevented by the Equality Act, 2010. It provides equal treatment to each and every employee. It prevents discrimination in the workplace from the protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are defined under the Equality Act, 2010 as race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, age, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment (Sánchez-Monedero, et. al., 2020). Discrimination against any protected characteristics is against the law.
The legislation under the employment law are Employment Rights Act, 1996 which regulates the equal and fair pay of employees (Legislation.Gov, 1996). National Minimum Wage Act, 1998, Employment Relations Act, 1999, Maternity and Paternity Leave regulation, 1999 and Part-time Worker Regulation, 2000, Transfer of Undertakings Regulation 2006 etc. The Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974 provides a safe working environment for employees. It is the duty of the employer to ensure the safety of employees at theworkplace.The data Protection Act, 2018 protects the data of the employees and concerns about the security of the data and the take care of the employee information.
UK employment laws protect employees from exploitation by employers, it also safeguards the rights of the employees which is provided through the Act. For example, the employee cannot be wrongfully or unfairly dismissed by the employer. The law gives the right to bring a claim against such wrongful activity. It was built to provide equal pay and to protect from discrimination. The employment law provides fair and equal treatment to employees at the workplace.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the concept in which the business has the responsibility of doing good to society.CSR is a very important element of the business organisation. Businesses have certain duties toward the welfare of society because in some or the other way it is responsible for harming the environment. To amend these it has a certain responsibility towards the society (LatapíAgudelo, et. al., 2019). The companies that are socially responsible should work by not only taking the account of internal factors but should also take the external factors. It should contribute towards sustainable development and should overall improve society.
The concept of CSR is a voluntary initiative and is not mandated by the law. There is no such law to govern the corporate social responsibility but it is the duty of the company to think beyond the shareholder. The government has recognized CSR activity as the helpful and best activity. Every company has its own social issues for corporate social responsibility. The company’s decided social issue can be seen on the official website of the company. The top and large companies published the index of corporate social responsibility that helps to measure the company’s performance in respect of the CSR values in their corporations that helps to improve the image of the company (Lu, et. al., 2019).
CSR is applicable to any business organisation irrespective of the size and sector of the business. It is not only beneficial for society but is also beneficial for the business organisation. CSR is helpful for the reputation of the organisation. The increase in the fund of social responsibility builds the business’s image as a responsible business and that can result in a competitive advantage for the business (Gallardo-Vázquez, et. al., 2019).It will also increase the sales and loyalty of customers. It helps to gain better financial performance. It leads to the overall growth of the organisation. It also helps in the easier access to the capital. Other than this, it also reduces the regulatory burden as it builds a good relationship with the local authorities that makes the business operations easier.
Companies like Thornton’s, Air Charter Service, Ernst & Young, BT, Gregg UK etc have the great CSR policies. For Example, the CSR policy that is followed by the Thornton’s is Recycling, Energy and Water. The company took an initiative for the recycling of waste management and it also aimed at energy saving as its main priority. It also committed to the reduction on the consumption of water and for that in 2011, it has signed the Federation House Commitment that focuses on the reduction of water consumption across the food and drink sector.
Ernst & Young (UK) has focused on social and community development. It has taken the initiative on the upliftment of communities and motivate the today’s youth to upskill by the training and development programmes. It has developed various programs like Education Partnership Programme that has the approach of school by working with the teachers and students. It has also initiated the School Governor network to help the staff increase the impact by providing sessions of skill and development. It has also started the progression of mentoring that supports the young people for employment, training, education etc.
The corporation is taking the CSR policy seriously as it is beneficial for society and for the company. The company’s reputation increased by the policy of corporate social responsibility. It also increases the image of the company in the eye of the consumers which results in an increase of consumer loyalty and sales. All the top companies have the great CSR policies which help motivate the smaller organisations as well to take the initiative for the social responsibility for the welfare of society. It is not only the duty of the government to think about the society’s welfare but it is the duty of citizens and corporations to think about the society’s welfare from the exploitation.
The essay has covered the Employment Law and Corporate division. It has discussed the employment law of UK descriptively. It has stated various legislations that are included under the employment law. It has described corporate social responsibility and to which extent the corporations have taken CSR seriously.
References
Gallardo-Vázquez, D., Valdez-Juárez, L.E. and Castuera-Díaz, Á.M., 2019. Corporate social responsibility as an antecedent of innovation, reputation, performance, and competitive success: A multiple mediation analysis. Sustainability, 11(20), p.5614. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/20/5614/pdf
Kuddo, A., 2018. Labor Regulations throughout the World.https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/30106/127606-REVISED-EPL-final-FULL.pdf?sequence=1
LatapíAgudelo, M.A., Jóhannsdóttir, L. and Davídsdóttir, B., 2019. A literature review of the history and evolution of corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 4(1), pp.1-23.https://jcsr.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40991-018-0039-y?uc=racialjustice
Legislation.Gov. 1996. Employment Rights Act 1996. [online] legislation.gov.uk. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/18/contents. [Accessed on: 20 April 2022]
Lu, J., Ren, L., He, Y., Lin, W. and Streimikis, J., 2019. Linking corporate social responsibility with reputation and brand of the firm. Amfiteatru Economic, 21(51), pp.442-460.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Judit-Olah/publication/332868579_Journal_no_51/links/5ccef599299bf14d9579af24/Journal-no-51.pdf#page=166
Sánchez-Monedero, J., Dencik, L. and Edwards, L., 2020, January. What does it mean to'solve'the problem of discrimination in hiring? Social, technical and legal perspectives from the UK on automated hiring systems. In Proceedings of the 2020 conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency (pp. 458-468).https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3351095.3372849
