Here’s what I know: add the Good Work Plan to your new year’s resolution list

January is traditionally a good time to make some positive plans for the year ahead—personally and professionally.

As you make resolutions about upping your fitness regime and cutting out the chocolate, there’s something else you need to be thinking about from a business perspective.

So here’s another resolution to consider: add “Prepare for the Good Work Plan” to the list of things you really need to get your head around in 2020.

What is the Good Work Plan?

Implemented as a result of the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices, the Good Work Plan is a set of multiple legal changes that will strengthen workers’ rights. It affects all businesses.

The Good Work Plan has, therefore, been called the biggest overhaul in employment law for 20 years, and it will radically change the landscape in which we all operate. In April 2020, we are going to see a large number of legal changes… 

Which will be here before we know it.

Plan now succeed later

It’s easy as an employer to think such changes won’t affect you or to put it off for another day.

But the changes are far-reaching, and if you don’t implement them from day one, you open yourself up to commercial and operational risk through potential tribunal claims.

That means you need to be thinking about your exposure now to ensure your house is in order by April.

Major Good Work Plan changes

Just some of the areas that will be affected are:

• Changes to rules around issuing a statement of main terms (SMTs). From 6th April 2020, both employees and workers will have a day one right to be provided with an SMT.
• The mandatory reference period for calculating holiday pay will increase. 
• Agency workers seeking work will have the right to a key information document that includes details of the nature of the work they will be accepting. Swedish Derogation Model contracts will be banned.

The changes don’t stop there. All workers are going to be able to request a more stable contract after 26 weeks’ service.

The date for this change has yet to be announced, but it will mean that those in insecure employment can request a more fixed working pattern—like a minimum number of hours per week.

The Good Work Plan made easy

Of course, that’s where we at Peninsula come in. The Good Work Plan is a hugely complex area, but it’s what we do day in, day out.

We have analysed the Government’s recommendations and changes. We know all the details as well as the consequences. And even better…

We are here to help you every step of the way in making sure you are fully compliant. We take away a great deal of burden and add value to your business.

So please let us lend you a hand in ticking off at least one of your New Year’s resolutions. Simply pick up the phone and talk it through with our team. Call today on 0800 029 4392.