Taylor Report: Businesses urged to review employee rights
The long-awaited Taylor Report, a look at the rights of employees in the UK, was released in July. With it came a raft of recommendations that businesses should take time to review.
The Government commissioned businessman Matthew Taylor, the Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), to complete the report in 2016 following the rise of working practices such as zero-hour contracts.
The aim was for the report to examine the way in which these practises had come to be and to look at how they were affecting the rights of the employees. The report has done so and has recommended seven key principles which businesses need to address to ensure that every worker has ‘quality work’. They are:
- that the “national strategy for work” should have the explicit goal of good work for all. The Government is accountable but businesses also need to embrace responsibility to ensure that everyone gets a fair deal.
- worker status should be renamed ‘dependent contractor’ status and it should be made easier to distinguish between these individuals and those who are genuinely self-employed.
- employment law and the way it is enforced should help companies make the right choices and enable individuals to know and exercise their rights.
- good corporate governance and strong employer relations, not more employment law, are the best way to achieve better work;
- everyone should feel they have “realistically attainable ways to strengthen their future work prospects”, whether through formal learning or on-the-job activities;
- organisations should take a more proactive approach towards workplace health, given that “the shape and content of work” and wellbeing are closely related; and
- employers in different sectors should form sectoral strategies to ensure individuals do not get stuck at national living wage level and are able to progress in their careers.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Matthew Taylor said: “Despite the impact of the national living wage and tax credits, there will always be people who are in work but finding it hard to make ends meet. Our social contract with those people should include dignity at work and the realistic scope to progress in the labour market.
“Bad work – insecure, exploitative, controlling – is bad for health and wellbeing, something that generates cost for vulnerable individuals but also for wider society.
“As many business leaders recognise, low quality work and weak management is implicated in our productivity challenge. Improving the quality of work should be an important part of our productivity strategy.
“If we want citizens who are engaged, responsible, active, who – to coin a phrase – ‘take back control’ we should encourage virtues in the workplace. Our idea of what it is to be a respected citizen should not stop at the office or factory door.”
Employee vetting could play a significant part in ensuring that some of these recommendations are met. By carrying out a pre-employment vetting process, you not only ensure that the person you are seeking to employ is who they say they are and a suitable candidate for the role, but you also place an assurance with the employee themselves. Investing in vetting gives an employee knowledge that a company wants them on the team and that they are prepared to invest money in making sure they are the right fit.
Furthermore, where vetting doesn’t take place issues can arise in the future, which is when companies can experience problems such as corporate governance and employment law. In seeking to meet the recommendations set out in the Taylor Report, employee vetting could give more security to all parties involved.
If you’d like to find out more about pre-employment vetting checks, get in touch with us today.
