Duncan Inverarity of A&L Goodbody LLP and Legal Island’s Victoria Smith give you a sneak preview of the issues you need to be aware of to future-proof your organisation.

Duncan provides his expert insights on what legal issues employers will need to deal with in 2024/25.

We give you the inside scoop on the Annual Review and reveal some of the topics and experts who’ll be joining us! But most importantly you’ll gain insights into what’s on the employment law horizon for Irish businesses.

Recording:

Transcript:

Victoria: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our webinar, "Horizon Scanning with Duncan Inverarity".

My name is Victoria Smith, and I'm part of the Knowledge Team here at Legal-Island. If this is your first time joining us, you're very welcome. We run a number of these webinars throughout the year that cover many topical issues within employment law. 

Thanks, as always to our sponsors, MCS Group. MCS help people find careers that match their skill sets perfectly, as well as supporting employers to build high-performing businesses by connecting them with the most talented candidates in the market. If you're interested in finding out how MCS can help you, head over to their website, www.mcsgroup.jobs.

I'm joined by Duncan, who is a Partner at A&L Goodbody. Duncan advises public and private sector employers on both contentious and non-contentious matters. He advises boardrooms across Ireland and abroad on strategic and complex employment and industrial relations matters. 

Duncan also specialises in crisis management for clients and has advised in some of the most high-profile corporate issues in Ireland. Duncan regularly speaks in our webinars and, of course, presents in Legal-Island's Annual Review of Employment Law. So, Duncan, you're very welcome here today.

Duncan: Thanks, Victoria.

Victoria: Today’s webinar is a bit different where we'd like to hear from you, the audience, on what some of your pain points are in your workplaces right now. Duncan and I will discuss some of the top issues that are happening here in employment law in Ireland, and of course, hear from Duncan on how you can address these issues. 

I'll be asking you, the audience, some questions, so please have your question box ready to pop in your responses. The first question is "What are some of the biggest challenges in your role at the moment?" 

As we wait for some responses, I'd like to turn to Duncan and ask you, Duncan, what do you think employers are dealing with or what are some of the challenges that you're helping your clients deal with at the moment then?

Duncan: Yeah, I think just to start off, Victoria, employment law is so dynamic. It's ever-changing and keeping up with the changes to employment law is probably one of the biggest challenges we all face, and just being on top of all that is going on both in the legislation and also in the courts.

So that's what I think is a big challenge for us all. But dissecting what has gone on in the first six months of the year, it's been very busy. I'm sure everyone out there is in the same boat, but it's been a very busy time, as I say, trying to keep up, and advising clients on ever-changing areas of employment law. 

But certainly, having thought about this and what is really keeping us busy at the moment, there's a lot more litigation than we would've experienced before, there are a lot of legislative changes which have come through, and there's a lot happening in the labour market by way of restructuring and so on. 

So, a few things that have presented as challenges certainly to me and our practice here is there seems to be an increasing incidence of protected disclosures. That will come as no surprise to practitioners in the area. Employees will have an unfair dismissal, they'll throw in a protected disclosure, and then probably a personal injury claim for good measure. So, they're the three claims that they tend to throw at employers.

But protected disclosures, because of change that happened late last year in terms of the internal reporting requirements and the changes to the legislation that occurred, have meant there's more knowledge out there about protected disclosures. There's more protection about protected disclosures. There's more concern from employers about protected disclosures, particularly because of the possible criminal implications of penalising a whistleblower.

Not tested, it has to be said, but you don't want to be the first test case in relation to that. So, if you do penalise someone and you are found to have penalised that individual, are you or a director and so on criminally liable for that action? So that kind of keeps managers and directors up at night, and it really informs the way in which they deal with protected disclosures. 

But as I say, it's a particularly busy area of the law and down at the WRC. People who have less than 12 months' service are taking protected disclosures. Everybody seems to have a protected disclosure, and it's quite a broad church as to what constitutes protected disclosures.

I mentioned restructuring. There's a lot of restructuring going on. Changes to the collective redundancy legislation, which is coming in on 1 July. Really, I think in response to the Clerys issue that happened all those years ago in that a responsible person is now going to be responsible for conducting the consultation requirements under the Protection of Employment Act to include people like liquidators.

So, the whole Clerys issue was involving liquidators and whether they did or they didn't go through a proper consultation process, and whether the directors of those companies were criminally liable for breaches of that particular act. So, there's a lot happening in the collective redundancy area.

In the restructuring piece again, we have the Debenhams decision, which is recent enough in the Labour Court about Section 9 and what does consultation look like, what does consultation mean, what does in good time mean. So, it's really made a lot of employers sit up and think, "How long have I got from the actual decision, which will result in collective redundancies, to begin a consultation process?" That's out of the Labour Court. But just to say that that decision, I think as most people would know, has now been appealed on a question of law to the High Court. So hopefully by the time we get to the end of the year, and we have the annual conference, we will have an outcome. That really is one to watch out for and hopefully we can report on that at that time.

Things like flexible and remote working. Since March '24, we've had the code of practice in place. The difference between flexible and remote working, people are getting their heads around. Flexible is really parents and carers leave and having flexibility around that, and then remote working is for everybody. "I want to work remotely". It's not a right to work remotely, as we know. It's a right to request to work remotely. How do people process that, and what can employers do in terms of assessing that request and when can they say, "No. Remote working isn't going to be appropriate"?

So certainly, the remote working piece is a product of the pandemic that we all went through, and the fact that we all seem to be working more remotely than we ever did before. Although anecdotally, it seems to me people are coming back to the office. There are more and more people coming back to the office, and employers are trying to reverse out of a situation where, for example, everybody worked remotely full-time. 

So, they've given up their business, they've given up their lease, they've given up the property where people would go to work. Now they're trying to reverse that, and they're trying to put people back into the office, and that's not straightforward and not a particularly easy thing to do. 

So, we're kind of getting back to where we were before. Not totally, but we certainly are getting closer to people being back in the office than what we realised before. Changes to sick pay. We all know about the Statutory Sick Pay scheme, and what is a better sick pay scheme? Is my sick pay scheme better than the statutory scheme? Have been a couple of decisions on that.

Probation periods. Again, this is educating. It's HR professionals educating managers that probation period really does mean six months. Yes, it can be extended if it's in the interests of the employee to extend it, but if you don't know someone after six months, you're probably not going to know them. So, it's really impressing on employers that probationary periods mean something, and you just can't extend it for the sake of extending it.

Retirement. We're all living longer. There is an increasing requirement, and I think it's a knowledge from employees that they can work beyond their contracted retirement age. And it's then a question of working with employers to when is that appropriate and how do you deal with employees who do want to work beyond their retirement age, but there is an account of view that you don't want them to work beyond their retirement age.

So, we have a code of practice on longer working and we're all complying with that, but it's dealing with . . . It's a small enough but vocal enough cohort of people who are approaching retirement who want to continue working.

And of course, we had the Supreme Court decision on Mallon on the retirement age. It's kind of a judicial review case and it's involving a public servant, but it does raise some important issues on retirement.

And then data breaches. We're all facing data breaches. Again, I think a lot of this is emanating from an increased knowledge of employees to their rights. Every employee knows they have a right to make a data access request. And every employer is really concerned about the fact that people make data access requests, because it can be quite an expensive process.

So, we see things like artificial intelligence now looking at "How do we respond to DSARs?" I think that's a really interesting area of the law. I think certainly in terms of horizon scanning, that's going to be something that will become more prominent as a way to deal with DSARs.

And then with the DSARs people when there is a data breach . . . slightly off the DSAR, but if there is a data breach, the claim for non-material loss and just the developing area of law there. So, if there is a data breach and they put it in a claim for non-material loss, it might not be much money.

But if you have a data breach involving a lot of employees, it adds up pretty quickly. And then we have recent decisions about you might need to go through the Personal Injuries Board to make an application under the non-material loss area. So that's kind of what keeps me up at night, keeps me going, keeps me very busy at the moment. That's without even getting into some of the judgements, which even though we're only in six months, there are some really interesting judgements out there that we can really dive into in the annual conference.

Victoria: Yes, absolutely. And I'll discuss in a little bit about you covering your top cases in our Annual Review later. But that's great, Duncan. I think certainly it's very hard for employers to stay compliant with all of these changes, and as you said, it's always a whirlwind of updates and regular revisiting of your policies and procedures. From looking at some of the responses, that has been certainly the case from some people here.

Ensuring that we're fully compliant with new policies is one of the key challenges that some people are dealing with. Just on your point about data subject access requests, someone has asked the question, "Have you seen an increase in data subject access requests in which employees are using an advance of ER/legal proceedings?" I mean, I would say from my own experience that would be a good indication that certainly if it's not a grievance, some sort of proceeding would be the case. But from your perspective, Duncan, from I suppose helping clients, have you seen a big increase in employees taking that approach?

Duncan: A significant increase, yeah. I mean, no employee is going to make a claim via a solicitor without putting in a DSAR. I think it's just as night follows day. And they get very expensive to respond to, even employees with a reasonably short period of service. Particularly when you get the DSAR, which is the all-encompassing DSAR, one should try and limit what they're looking for, and if you're acting for the recipient of a DSAR, to go back and say, "Look, can we limit this in some way? It will make things a lot more efficient, a lot easier". But there is no doubt that DSARs are through the roof in terms of both the knowledge of employees to make them and the fact that they are making them.

They are certainly making DSARs. And so, we now see, as I said before about when data breaches happen, as they do, we have the non-material loss claims, which are becoming more and more prevalent. There's a little bit of case law around that, and we can look at that at the Annual Review, but that's another area of law that seems to be . .

I mean, I must say personally I don't really understand why it's so easy to make a claim for a non-material loss. There's not much money in it for the employee, but they're being made. There's a nuisance value, a massive nuisance value. And again, in the DSAR world, there's a massive nuisance value with a DSAR. So, you will see when you are resolving a dispute, you resolve the DSAR piece as well. Now, query whether or not you can contract out of a data access request. I don't think you can. But if there has been a DSAR request made, you can resolve that. But it's certainly a bargaining tool.

Victoria: Yeah, and it puts such an awful burden on the employer having to respond and deal with those. And as you said, particularly if you have a large number of employees who are putting that on, then yes, it's an increasingly concern and challenge just to stay on top of.

Duncan: Yeah, I think the key for any employer, just for the detail, is to have a system in place to deal with it. So, when you receive it, what do you do with it? How do you respond to it? Have a reasonably good system in place. The DPC will make inquiries, and you often find where they make inquiries is where they get hounded by the employee in question. So, the employee might become quite fixated in their DSAR and fixated in their response, and they are the ones who cause the most difficulty without a doubt.

Victoria: Yeah. Just regarding the non-material damages, how would you advise companies to try and mitigate the rest of these claims? Is there any sort of way that companies can deal with them more effectively?

Duncan: Well, the first thing is don't have a data breach. Cut it off at the knees. But in the event that that happens, you just . . . Once it starts, it starts, but it's a question of whether or not you have the appetite to resist. Really, the courts are not awarding a lot of money for these types of data breaches unless they're particularly egregious. But even in those situations, it's modest enough. But it's managing the litigation once it starts. That's the problem. And we don't have class action, so it's multiple claims in the circuit court.

But I think the jurisprudence that's developing is trying to dissuade employees from taking these types of data breach claims, the more simple ones, by making it more difficult in terms of the bar that they're trying to establish, that you must establish a loss. It might be non-material, but you still have to establish a loss. And you may have to go to PIAB for the application to be able to make particular damages claim. So they're trying to make it more difficult, but they're still available.

Victoria: Perfect. Another person has responded in to say that with all the new legislation that's coming in, it can be difficult to interpret that legislation into a policy. For example, with the new right to request remote working, where does the employer's liability start and end with providing office furniture, etc.? What is your view, Duncan, on that? With the increase of people wanting to work primarily from home, where does the employer, I suppose, start with their responsibility and obligations to their staff?

Duncan: I think you start with the code of practice. And people will remember there was quite a political debate about the code and the legislation and what was it really providing. Unions wanted the right to work remotely as opposed to the right to request to work remotely. They're fundamentally different. And the code itself has so many outs for an employer. An employee's remedy is to the WRC. Not so much that the employer is refusing, but it's that they haven't considered the request. So it's quite diluted in terms of what an employee's entitlements are when it comes to remote working.

So to the question, Victoria, the starting point is the code. The starting point is to make sure your policy is in line with the code. And the code is pretty flexible when it comes to consideration of requests. And remember that insofar as you grant the request to work remotely, you do need, as an employer, to have a manner and a way in which you can reverse that in the event that you need to. Once it's established without conditions, it's very difficult to roll back from that.

But as I said before when I was chatting, a client has a policy where everybody works remotely. Then there's been a corporate transaction. The company has been bought by someone else who said, "That's not the way we work. We want people to come back". It's one down from a world of pain, but it's not great, and it's not easy to do. So for every right to request and for every granting of a remote working arrangement, you should have a way in which that can be reversed within reason, like giving notice and appropriate notice to the employees and so on.

Victoria: But as you had mentioned, yes, there has been a big shift from everyone during COVID just accepting that this is the new way of working, and now we're a few years after that and some employers are, I suppose, wanting to reverse back. It's a challenge then to try and certainly even get employees' buy-in on that, but from a legal perspective, as you said, if there's a precedent, it could be a challenge then. Is that right?

Duncan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you still have obviously areas of discrimination that you need to watch out for as well. But a lot of this, and I've said this before, is employees just being so much more aware of their rights, which is a good thing, and so much more aware that their benefits are getting better, again, which is a good thing. But we look at things like sick pay, parents' leave is increasing to nine weeks, and the changes in transparency through the gender pay gap and reducing the threshold for which employees have to report. There's a lot happening in employment law. And as I say, it's all towards becoming more beneficial for employees. It's all towards increasing knowledge of employees. So it makes people like me very busy, it makes HR professionals very busy, and it makes employers worry about the cost of hiring labour.

Victoria: Of course. Absolutely. Yes, it's definitely a big issue. One other question or issue that someone is dealing with is dealing with the drug and alcohol employee relations cases. Duncan, from your perspective, have you been involved with recent cases with your clients in that?

Duncan: Oh, absolutely. This is an issue. It depends on the industry, of course, and depends on who we're talking about. Not everybody needs to be tested for drug and alcohol. It's particularly prevalent, I think, in multinational countries where it's far more common, particularly in the U.S., where drug and alcohol testing in the workplace is not an uncommon thing. But then we say, "Look, in Europe, it's not something we do necessarily unless there is particularly a health and safety reason for implementing some drug and alcohol testing policy". That's not to say that your policy, say, a disciplinary policy, should not deal with things like substance abuse and so on.

But the testing itself is not something that can be implemented. There does need to be some health and safety consideration in advance of you doing that, and the testing itself we would say needs to be done by a registered medical practitioner. It's not going to be done by the employer. And you might have a supervisor who thinks someone is under the effect of a prescribed or unprescribed medication or alcohol. That puts a lot of pressure on that particular manager to deal with it. So there are ways in which that can be dealt with, without certainly the employer implementing a drug and alcohol testing policy. But it's a big issue.

Victoria: Yeah, that's a big issue. And I suppose there are a number of different challenges and issues that can happen when you're presented with a case like that. One that I know comes up quite a bit is what if an employee just outright refuses to undertake a test? What would you advise in that scenario?

Duncan: So, if you have a policy in place and he or she is not complying with the policy, it essentially becomes a disciplinary issue then. I'm not saying it's necessarily easy to prove that the person is under the influence or impaired in any way, but the refusal to follow a reasonable direction or comply with the policy will invariably have implications for the employee, consequences.

Victoria: Yeah. Massive. And for that person who submitted that challenge, you'll be pleased to know we have a particular session covering that in our upcoming Annual Review, which I'll talk about in a little moment. But Duncan, there's just so much that employers do need to stay on top of. And as you mentioned, there have been various cases even so far halfway through the year. From your perspective, what do you think employers should have their eye on in particular on the horizon? Is there anything that you're even anticipating in terms of a big case or latest developments with legislation?

Duncan: I think if we look at the cases that we've seen in the last six months, just to give us an indication of where things are going . . . And again, which we can talk about and which I'm dying to talk about at the Annual Review. I mean, this is happening all the time. We had the decision last week in Philip Nolan's case, which is really interesting. I'm not going to get into the detail of it, but it's really interesting because it does raise the issue of termination for performance, for example. And it is a change in the law from what we understood it to be, so it may be appealed. But to really get under the bonnet of that, I think, will be really interesting.

We had a decision in a case called Creganna v Integar, which involved restrictive covenants, post-employment restrictive covenants and non-competes. That was the subject of a High Court injunction. So again, really interesting area and interesting to see what the courts are saying about restrictive covenants. It's building on the previous jurisprudence that we're all familiar with by now.

We have ESB v Sharkey, which is another case involving potential criminal activity, an employee invoking a right to silence, and whether or not that right to silence . . . Where does that right to silence sit with the civil action that an employer would take by way of terminating someone's employment, going through a disciplinary procedure? So that, again, was a High Court decision.

I mentioned the case of Mallon in the Supreme Court about retirement ages, and I mentioned the case of Debenhams. I think Debenhams is the big one. So, all we have at the moment is the Labour Court decision, but that does inform employers in going through collective redundancies how to approach collective redundancies, and it puts quite a bit of an onus on the employer to commence consultation pretty quickly after the decisions are made which result in a collective redundancy consultation process.

So that's just a whistle stop tour of some decisions that have come down since the beginning of the year. So, if you multiply that for the next six months of the year, we've got another huge number of decisions that we need to go through.

But that's not even getting into the WRC. Some really interesting WRC cases that we've had, some equality cases. We haven't even touched on that, but that's for the Annual Review. But they're kind of some of the bigger decisions that I think people really should have a look at now if they haven't already.

And just looking ahead, things that are going to be coming down the line, the auto-enrolment pensions. I've mentioned cost to employers. Here's another one. So, we have the auto-enrolment, which is going to be an opt-out. You're automatically enrolled unless you opt out, which is obviously going to be a change for employers and it's going to be an additional cost for employers. That's due to commence in January 2025. So that'll be a significant change for employers in terms of management of costs. It'll be a significant change for employees because Ireland has traditionally not been a great pension contributing country, and this will change it overnight.

 You will have the establishment of massive pension funds, industry pension funds, which we haven't seen before. The consequence of that is investment into all sorts of industry through these pension funds. There are so many other jurisdictions in the world that have compulsory enrolment, and we are a long way behind the curve, but we can see what the consequences of all this are. And they're not bad. There's some massive investment that goes into business, which is obviously a good thing, but it will have a significant impost on employers.

And then we have the EU minimum wage directive, which is coming down. I think we need to implement that by November 2024. Our minimum wage is, relatively speaking, not bad. The government are committed to introduce a living wage by 2026. So, these things are happening as well. I think the minimum wage at the moment is €12.70. Our living wage is around €13.10, I think, so there is a delta there.

We are not as far behind as some other countries, but that's something that we are required to introduce. And the second bit about that directive is the collective bargaining piece. It's to try and encourage collective bargaining. Ireland has not been particularly good at collective bargaining. You look at the Miscellaneous Provisions Act and what happened with that, with the Ryanair case way back when and Supreme Court decision, blah, blah, blah. It has not really got off the ground or not been taken as a serious piece of legislation by trade unions, so it really does inhibit the collective bargaining piece. So, I think it's really interesting to watch that space. The trade union movement is very hot on this, and the trade union movement is very critical of the government for not acting on this earlier.

So again, as practitioners, I think it will be really interesting to see what changes will be made. Of course, we have the election sometime between now and February. God knows when that's going to be. And depending on who wins that election, that could be a significant game changer for the horizon of employment law in Ireland.

Victoria: Yeah. Absolutely. So, there's a lot on the horizon and a lot to just look out for, but that's great, Duncan. Definitely a great insight just to try and help employers keep themselves on the right with these developments. So definitely watch this space for what may come.

Duncan: I do think with the Annual Review and just the case review at the Annual Review, there are going to be some really interesting cases to, as I say, go under the bonnet and have a good look at.

Victoria: Absolutely.

Duncan: Do your homework and read them before you get there.

Victoria: Well, that leads me to a nice segue just to discuss about what will be coming up at the Annual Review.

So, we're excited to announce that Duncan will obviously be part of our Annual Review, which will be held on 12 November both online and in-person at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. This event is an excellent opportunity to learn on the latest employment law developments, again, a lot of the stuff that Duncan has touched upon, as well as an opportunity to connect with all of our peers in the legal and HR community here in Ireland.

If you can't attend in-person, as mentioned, it'll also be online as well. Our dual session streams allow you the opportunity to attend those sessions that are most relevant to you. And with all of the sessions recorded, you can watch back on those that you didn't make on the day at a time convenient to you. Tickets are currently on sale at an early bird rate. In-person paces are limited, so if you're looking to attend in-person, it's recommended to book now to secure your place.

You can find out by clicking the link, which will be added to the chat now, or you can obviously head over to our website and look under our Events. Now, just to help ourselves here at Legal-Island, it would be great just to get some insights on whether you are planning on attending this year's Annual Review. So, there will be a poll that will appear on your screen shortly.

It's just all for ourselves here at Legal-Island to get an indication from those attending the webinar today if you are planning on attending. So, yes, not this year, or undecided at the moment. I will give you a moment just to answer, but it will be helpful for us after this webinar just to see the results.

For those of you who are undecided or those who are planning on attending and are excited to hear what's coming up, I'm able to reveal some of the confirmed sessions that we will have in store for you on the day.

So, Duncan has mentioned some of the key points already, and obviously, we'll be excited to hear about some of the latest developments. As usual, Jennifer Cashman, Partner and Head of Employment Law at RDJ, will be presenting her two sessions at the Annual Review. In the first part of her review looking back, she will delve into the significant employment law developments of 2024. Jennifer will provide a comprehensive roundup of the key changes in trends that have emerged since November last year, ensuring that you are well informed about the shifts that could impact your workplace.

In the second session looking forward to 2025, Jennifer will be examining the potential employment law developments that are also on the horizon. She'll explore what's likely to unfold in the next year and discuss proactive steps that you can take now to mitigate risk and seize opportunities. As mentioned actually by Duncan about the Electricity Supply Board v Sharkey case, HR expert Michelle Halloran will discuss the implications of the landmark case, which focuses on the right to silence in investigations. Silence is not always golden, so this is a crucial topic that HR and legal professionals need to be aware of.

Caroline Reidy of The HR Suite will be covering an important issue that is growing, which is unfortunately substance abuse in the workplace. A 2023 report by the Health Research Board indicates that drug use remains a substantial issue here in Ireland, and as mentioned by one of our listeners, they are currently dealing with the fallout of some of those issues in disciplinary matters.

So, Caroline will be providing practical guidance on supporting employees struggling with substance abuse, but also focussing on a compassionate and legally compliant workplace environment. So again, how you can address those issues if it needs to go through a disciplinary process.

Lorcan Keenan will be providing guidance on the impact on the long-awaited automatic enrolment retirement savings system, highlighting the steps that your organisation needs to take to comply with this significant shift in pension provision in Ireland. And just as Duncan picked up there, it'll be a major shift here.

Dr Gerry McMahon will be delving into the developments in the trade union engagement and recognition, providing practical strategies for successful negotiations in light of the upcoming EU directive on collective bargaining, which will be coming in November this year as well.

And lastly, but certainly not least, we will have Duncan who will be providing his comprehensive review of the key Irish employment law cases that have happened this year, which will offer invaluable lessons to help you avoid those common mistakes that can happen in your organisation. So, all of these sessions are designed to ensure you are well prepared for the changes ahead and can effectively manage the evolving legal landscape.

We would, again, like to just get an indication from you listening, and we will have another poll that will be coming up. So, we have outlined a few of the key things that we feel are coming up within HR practitioners and we'd like to just ask, "Of these issues, which would you like more knowledge on to help you in your role?" Again, there are five different options here that you can choose. Which of the five do you think in particular would really help you deal with certain issues that are cropping up? So, again, I'll give you just a moment to answer, and we will see some of our responses.

I can see in the background, again, quite a few people asking to deal with the remote working requests, and also probation is a key one as well. Toxic work environments are unfortunately a thing that still crops up in modern workplaces today, and it's very difficult to deal with. We will see where our poll is. So quite a mixture, I can see. That's great. Yeah, there are our results. So, sort of neck and neck are "dealing with toxic work environments" and "dealing with probation: when to extend or dismiss". That's very interesting and helpful just for us to see. Quite a few of the others, though, are still very popular, so again, good to know.

And a final poll, then, that we will just be asking to you. Again, five different options for you to choose from, but which of these would be most relevant to you and your organisation?So again, five to choose from. A variety of different issues that I think can still be a hard thing to manage or know how to manage within your workplace, but which of the five here do you feel is most relevant?

Again, I'll give you a minute to answer. Quite a few who are responding for mental health support. And we'll give you just another second here just to respond. Okay. That's helpful. We can see clearly that workplace mental health support is in the lead there. Similar, though, HR and business leaders' burnout. Obviously, as Duncan has discussed, there's so much, I think, for employers to try and get to grips with and deal with. Really, how we can support ourselves in trying to stay on top of that and stay compliant can actually in effect lead to HR and business leaders burning themselves out. So, yeah, definitely an interesting one, but mental health is still a very relevant issue that employers, I think, still are trying to deal with. That's very helpful for us to know. That's great. Thank you. We're finished with the polls there. Any of those responses, I suppose, surprise, or keep in line with what you know about, Duncan? What are your thoughts on them?

Duncan: Definitely mental health in the workplace is a significant issue. I was in a meeting of employment lawyers recently, and it was a European meeting. Not the ELA for those on the call, but the major theme was mental health. And that was the requested topic because it's a big issue within employers. Both as employers and individually, it's a massive issue in terms of the amount of work that everyone is expected to do dealing with mental health in the workplace, so that doesn't surprise me at all.

Victoria: No, absolutely. It's been a key issue for a number of years because it's just not going away, and I suppose employers will always be faced how to deal with it appropriately and supporting each other. I think that there's been a massive increase in HR professionals recognising within themselves that their own mental health is maybe suffering after the last number of years, particularly with the fallout of COVID.

Duncan: Yeah. And I think the other message is people are more prepared to talk about it than they have in the past. But you look at the demographics of mental health and mental health reporting, it's towards the younger end of the scale, because that's the way it is these days. And just on the probation, I'm not surprised about that at all. I think people just have a lack of understanding on how to manage probation. And you look at the Over-C Technology and now the Nolan decision slightly differently, but certainly that Over-C Technology/Donovan decision, that's how you manage probation.

Victoria: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we'll be excited to hear more from you, obviously, come November. There'll be lots to discuss, and obviously for those who are planning on attending, you can pose more of your questions to Duncan at the time. But that is all the time that we do have for this webinar. I'd really like to thank, obviously, everyone who attended, and thank Duncan, of course, for his expertise and his insights on what is coming ahead. So, thank you all for your questions and for your responses to the polls.

 As mentioned, don't miss the opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and protect your business by attending the Annual Review this November. Again, you can join us online or in-person to gain this essential knowledge, and I hope to see you there.

Duncan, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to speak with you, and I hope everyone has a great rest of your day. Thank you.

Duncan: Thank you so much. Bye.

Victoria: Bye.

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