What is The Good Work Plan and how does it affect employers and employees?

Posted 4 years ago

The Good Work Plan came into effect back in April 2020 and came about as a result of an independent review, known as the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices.

However, despite it having come into effect almost a year ago, around 60% of UK business owners haven’t heard of it.

For this reason, we’ve put together this blog to outline it’s policies and how they will affect your organisation.

What is The Good Work Plan?

In short, the GWP is the government’s plan on how it will implement the vast majority of Taylor’s recommendations.

The changes proposed in the government’s plan were designed to give greater protection for those working under more flexible working arrangements – who, in employment law, occupy a middle ground between employees and the self-employed, known as a ‘worker’.

In the UK, an individual’s rights depend on their employment status. That means it’s never been more important for business owners to be able to clearly define the employment status of those working for them.

Unfortunately, defining employment status for the purpose of employment rights isn’t quite as clear cut as, say, for tax purposes, where a person is either employed or self-employed.

It’s the middle category – worker – that sits between employed and self-employed, that’s most likely to cause the most confusion.

What does it change and how does it affect employers and employees?

There are a number of things that the Good Work Plan outlines to change, including in the following areas:

Contracts of employment
Agency workers
How pay is calculated
Leave for parents who lose a child
The employment tribunal system
Umbrella companies

A full list of the recommendations can be found here.

When asked about the Good Work Plan, Gillian McAteer, Head of Employment Law at Citation, said the following:

The Good Work Plan is the government’s agenda for the gradual implementation of the vast majority of the recommendations made by Matthew Taylor in his 2017 report on modern working practices in the UK. This report focussed on the flexibility of the modern UK labour market – exemplified by the emergence of the gig economy – and the consequences of this for businesses, workers and society in general. The report recognised the value of this flexibility but acknowledged that with this comes the blurring of rights and obligations. The Good Work Plan reforms aim to give clarity to this, allowing employers to reap the benefits of a flexible workforce but also giving more transparency to their obligations and easier routes for workers to enforce their rights.

Gillian McAteer, Head of Employment Law at Citation

Free downloadable guides

There’s no denying that the changes that came into force in April are complex and difficult to get your head around. From defining the employment status of everyone working for you, to making sure the right documents are communicated to the right people, it’s a lot.

With that being said, working with HR & Employment law specialists, Citation, we’ve put together a couple of free-to-download guides that can help business owners and employers to wrap their heads around the Good Work Plan.

Download Guides