HR staff 'must do more to promote employment rights'

Staff in human resources (HR) jobs need to do more to promote employment rights among workers under their jurisdiction, according to an employment thinktank.

Speaking to Personnel Today, Stephen Overell, associate director of the Work Foundation, said: "Ensuring people know their rights is a simple, straightforward bit of good that HR can do that is more practically useful than creating stacks of new policies and procedures."

Earlier this week, a report from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills revealed that more than 20 per cent of workers did not feel they were fully aware of all their employment rights, especially in relation to issues such as holiday entitlement and working hours.

The study also stated that, in the past five years, around 30 per cent of workers had been involved in an employment rights issue at work.

Under UK employment law, people working five-day weeks are entitled to 28 days of holiday leave per year.

Updated: 29 October 2009.
Categories: human-resources, jobs, market-and-industry-news.