News

Newsletter June 2008

Communicating With and Consulting with your Staff

From 6th April 2008, the Information & Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations 2004 were extended to all employers with at least 50 employees. Previously they only applied to those with at least 150 employees (from April 2005) and then to those with at least 100 (from April 2007).

The Regulations are aimed at promoting the development of formal approaches to informing and consulting employees about key developments and issues within an organisation. However they provide for a wide range of different approaches, albeit that the emphasis is on jointly agreed mechanisms, not employer-imposed ones.

Employees themselves can trigger a need for formal mechanisms - a request supported by 10% (minimum 15 people) of employees can trigger the need for negotiating a scheme; following such a request employers have a total of 9 months from the date of that request to agree a scheme, or the Standard scheme set out in the Regulations will apply.

Alternatively employers can initiate the negotiation of a scheme with their employees. Different arrangements apply where establish (so-called pre-existing) arrangements exist e.g. a consultative forum with recognised trade unions.

Employers with at least 50 employees with no formal information and consultative arrangements have two options:

• Do nothing and wait until employees request a scheme – and, of course, they may never make such a reques
• Be proactive and seek to install formal arrangements for communicating and consulting with their employees

If you need further advice or help, then please contact us.