Knowing Your Employment Rights
Work for most people has been impacted by Covid-19. At Citizens Advice Brighton and Hove, more people than ever came to us about certain employment issues during the first year of the pandemic.
Alongside our employment advice work we produced an online information and advice campaign. We wanted to encourage people to consider their employment status, their rights, and sources of advice and support.
This is a complex area, and your employment status in law might be different to how you, and your employer consider it. You should seek impartial advice on your employment status and rights.
The information we provide in this campaign is intended to help you develop your understanding of these issues, not to provide definitive answers to your particular situation.
Why is employment status important?
Your employment status is important because it can affect your legal rights on issues such as furlough, safety at work, help if you’re self-employed, benefits and redundancy.
Knowing your rights at work can help you now and in the future.
Other sources of advice and information
Gov.uk also gives information on employment status and rights at work.
The TUC (Trades Union Congress) can advise on a union relevant to your work and your employment rights.
ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) can give free and impartial employment advice and help to resolve disputes at work.
Employment advice statistics at Citizens Advice Brighton and Hove
Since the first lockdown began in March 2020, Citizens Advice Brighton and Hove closed face to face and drop-in advice and moved to remote advice provided by telephone and email. In many areas of advice our case numbers were lower than the previous year because of this lack of face to face advice.
In some areas – such as employment – the numbers of issues we supported people on remained the same, even without face to face advice provision.
In some areas, even with this factor, the number of enquiries increased. For example:
- Enquiries about zero hours contracts increased by 114%
- Enquiries about statutory sick increased by 28%
- Enquiries about company sick pay increased by 100%
- Enquiries about wrongful dismissal increased by 30%
- Enquiries about redundancy pay increased by 89%
- Enquiries about selection for redundancy increased by 242%
- Enquiries about notice increased by 104%
We used these figures to plan our Know your Employment Rights advice and information campaign online on social media. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook using the links towards the bottom of this page and throughout our website.
You can find information about our research and campaigns work here.
