The European Union (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions) Regulations 2022 became law on 16 December 2022, and in this month's webinar, Caroline Reidy, Managing Director of the HR Suite, joins Julie Holmes, Knowledge Partner from the Legal Island Team, to discuss changes employers will need to make as a result of this legislation.

Caroline speaks widely and writes articles and papers on thought leadership in relation to the future landscape of HR and the challenges and opportunities that presents for employers and employees. She also speaks on the area of employment law, mediation and other relevant HR related topics. She is a regular contributor and expert presenter & trainer in all HRE and Employment Law areas.

Legal Island webinars are sponsored by MCS Recruitment. More details on MCS can be found at www.mcsgroup.com

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Recording: ⚓︎

Transcript: ⚓︎

Julie:  Good morning, everybody. My name is Julie Holmes, and I'm part of the Knowledge Team here at Legal-Island. And today's webinar guest is Caroline Reidy, Managing Director of The HR Suite.

So Legal-Island's webinars and podcasts are sponsored by the MCS Group. MCS help people find careers that match their skillsets perfectly. As well as that, they help employers to build high-performing businesses by connecting them with the most talented candidates in the marketplace. So if you're interested in hearing a bit more, please head to their website and find out more about how they can help you at www.mcsgroup.jobs.

Now, I know that today we're talking about the European Union (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions), but as you know, at Legal-Island, we always have our eye on the news and ear to the ground. And so one of the recent developments that we've been keeping an eye on is ChatGPT, which has been in the news.

So before we get really started, what we'd like to do is ask you a couple of questions to help us look at how we can shape events for you in the future.

So, Maria, we've got poll question, if Maria can bring up the poll question for us. Thank you.

First of all, how familiar are you with ChatGPT and its relevance to HR? So never heard of ChatGPT; it may be that you've heard about it but don't understand its relevance; or it could be you've heard about it and understand its relevance to HR. So if you could just take a moment and choose one of those options for us please, that would be great.

Maria, whenever you're ready. Thank you. Okay. So not many people have heard about it, and I think that you'll find that it's been in the news quite recently. So after this you can always Google it and find out a little bit more about the robots that can help HR. Or will they become our masters in years to come? Think about Will Smith in "iRobot".

The second question then is . . . and I'll just ask Maria to bring up the slide for us. Thanks, Maria. If we were to run an event in the coming weeks on ChatGPT and HR and how the two would interact, would you be interested? So yes, I would be interested; maybe; or no, not yet, you may have got other priorities on the go. So again, if you could just let us know, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Maria. Okay, thank you. So yes, I think it's something that people say that they don't know a lot about and may be interested in learning a bit more. If you're a subscriber to our weekly review emails, you'll maybe get your first look at it there as well. We'll be featuring a couple of items on it.

The European Union (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions) Regulations 2022

All right. So now that we're going to get down to business, I'm just going to tell you a little bit about Caroline first.

So Caroline is a past member of the Low Pay Commission, and also an adjudicator in the Workplace Relations Commission. She completed a Master's in Human Resources through the University of Limerick. She's CIPD accredited, as well as being a trained mediator.

She's worked across various areas of HR for over 20 years in both the Kerry Group and in the retail and hospitality sector, where she was the Operations and HR Director of the Garvey Group prior to setting up The HR Suite in 2009.

So Caroline speaks widely and writes articles and papers. She hasn't mentioned this in her blurb, but she's also a TEDx speaker as well. And she also writes papers on thought leadership in relation to the future landscape of HR and the challenges and opportunities that this presents for both employees and employers.

Caroline is a valued contributor to Legal-Island and we're always delighted to work with her, so thanks very much, Caroline, for facilitating this session for us today.

So, in today's webinar, we're going to look at the EU directive on transparent and predictable working conditions. We've been waiting on this since August, but they snuck it in just before Christmas and it became law on 16 December 2022.

The legislation includes an update on the length of probation periods, which some of you have already sent in questions about, double employment, notification of work schedules, and training costs as well.

So please note that there aren't going to be any slides with this presentation, but you will be able to avail of a recording afterwards.

And if you have any questions for Caroline, please pop them into the question box over on the right-hand side, and if we have time at the end, we'll try and answer as many of those as possible.

Caroline, over to you. Thanks very much.

Caroline:  Great. Thanks, Julie. And great to see so many of you join our webinar this morning.

As Julie rightly said, this has been a long-awaited European directive to be transposed into Irish legislation, and it happened literally just before Christmas on 16 December. It is a really important piece of legislation because it impacts every single employee in Ireland except those with less than four weeks' service or those that work less than three hours a week on average. So, really, it covers pretty much most employees that would be in that category.

What it also requires is for us to update our contracts and our contract process. There are two different documents that are applicable that I'm going to talk you through, and lots of different elements within the terms and conditions also.

And just to remind us that most of our legislation comes from Europe, it's transposed into Irish legislation, and normally we have a deadline to do that. August was our deadline for this legislation, but it actually came into play, as I say, from 16 December. So all employers are expected at this stage to be compliant to this piece of legislation.

The other important thing to note is it requires us to update three pieces of our primary legislation as well, our terms of employment, our organisational working time, and our fixed-term worker legislation, because it has implications on all of those.

So I'm going to take you through the key elements and the key changes, and then I will take any of your questions. We've received a lot of questions in advance of the webinar that I'm going to address as much as I can in today's session, and then we're welcoming questions as well at the end.

So I suppose to start with, there's a requirement to provide a five-day statement, which has been previously in place since the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018.

We were required to originally set out the full name of the employer and the employee. And remember, that's always the registered name as well as the trading name, if it exists, but the registered company name is the important piece. The address of the employer, the expected duration of the contract. And if that contract is temporary or fixed term, you need to outline that. The rate or method of calculating pay and the pay reference period, so whether it's weekly, fortnightly, or monthly. And then also what the employee will reasonably expect in terms of what would they work in a day or what would they work in a week.

And remember now we also have the concept of banded hours, if that's relevant to work that somebody may be working within a band.

So that was already in place prior to this new legislation. And since this new legislation has come in, that now has extended our responsibility and we must now also include probationary period, which I'm going to talk more about as the day goes on.

We also need to outline the detail of the probation, how long it is, are there any conditions linked to it, the place of work. And if there's no fixed place, where they expect to be or where free time is determined in their workplace.

The title, grade, nature, or category of the work, and a brief description of the work. So again, it needs to be clear what is expected of the employee. The date of commencement of the contract, and any terms relating to hours of work, including overtime.

So that's quite a chunky five-day statement now. These items originally needed to be provided within two months of starting, and now they must be set out in this five-day statement.

So there's a big NB to go with that. Remember, I mentioned the applicable category of worker, so anybody who has more than four weeks' service or on average works more than three hours. So, ultimately, what that means is nobody should be in the business longer than that without having got this statement.

However, as you'll see now when I move on to what they're entitled to additionally get under the terms of Employment Information Act . . . which has now subsequently been enhanced. Previously, this was two months that they needed to get some of the key elements. Now this has been reduced to one month.

So our advice is rather than having two separate documents, i.e. the five-day statement and this one-month statement, which both combine and form the terms and conditions, that you would have one terms and conditions and the employee would get all of those at the very start.

So I'll go through with you what is involved in relation to that. And it's quite a lot of administrative additional responsibility if you were to do the initial process of having five days and one month. So I think administratively to avoid costs, etc., and additional duplication of work, it makes more sense to give all this information at the outset.

But this one-month's written statement must also explain any pay intervals, details of any paid leave, including annual leave and public holidays, details of the sick pay. And remember, we have the new Statutory Sick Pay now introduced in Ireland. And then if there's no other scheme in place by the employer, you state that. If there is, you state that as well.

And remember as well that Statutory Sick Pay is going to increase each year. That's what's proposed. So when you are drafting that clause, again, it's important to reflect the fact that that will increase as well. So it's what's relevant at that time.

Details of any pension or pension scheme. And again, we're conscious that there's pension auto-enrolment coming down the tracks. The period of notice to be given by the employer or the employee. And finally, any details of any collective agreements that might be in place to affect their terms.

And additionally to that, in one month, you must also now outline the training provided by the employer. And obviously, the cost of that needs to be borne by the employer, and also the time that the person spends doing it needs to be reflective of that as well.

In the case of temporary agency workers, the identity of the end user. So if you are working for, say, a middle person, you need to know the site you're working on, for example.

If the working pattern is unpredictable, or mostly unpredictable, we need to acknowledge that that is the case and give them details of what are the guaranteed number of hours they can expect, and what are the additional unpredictable hours. Again, keep in mind the banded hours legislation here.

And again, you need to state the days and the hours the employee may be required to work and the notice given to the employee before they start that unpredictable work or that specific assignment.

Finally, the additional piece of the identity of the Social Security Institution, which is revenue in terms of the social insurance contributions that are linked to the contract in relation to that. So, again, making people aware of that is a requirement as well.

So, as you can see from that alone, there are a few key elements that HR practitioners must do. One is to decide if you are going to do the initial five-day statement as well as the one-month, or are you going to combine them into one document and ensure the new employee gets all that detail within the first week? And again, that's something for you to think about.

Second of all, once you've made that decision, you need to update your documents to reflect it. And again, there's quite a bit of updating required in relation to that. And even when I continue, you'll see there are more updates required from a contract or a handbook perspective.

Obviously, you can get a company like ours to assist in doing that, or you can do it yourself. But remember now, at 2 February, this is the legislation since 16 December, so it's important we do update it.

So I'm going to move on to the next kind of key change that has come about in relation to this piece of legislation. And that's in relation to probationary periods.

The regulations have outlined that probationary periods can't exceed six months. However, if it is on an exceptional basis in the interest of the employee, they can be up to 12 months, but no longer than that.

And if they are going to be up to 12 months, you must outline in the contract why it's in the interest of the employee, and also you must make them aware of that at the outset.

So, really, it should be a job that is quite technical, for example, that there are specific milestones that the employee needs to hit to achieve a level of competence that are quite unique to the job.

We have a specific client and the job training requires nine months. It's very, very specific, very technical, and the probationary period to achieve those milestones is in keeping with that. The employee has been notified in advance, and it is very specific. So this is not a normal scenario for probation.

Some people have come back with a lot of queries to us in relation to, "What does exceptional basis or what does in the interest of the employee refer to?" We can talk more about that in the Q&A, but to be very clear, it's not the norm, it's an exception, and you need to really justify it if you decide to have it more than six months.

There was a provision in the legislation for anybody who had a longer probation than six months. If it was longer than that, it had to complete by 1 February 2023, or the probationary period when it was due to expire if earlier.

We're now in 2 February, so probations for anybody shouldn't be longer than six months, even those that had a contract before this with a longer period of time. So again, that's really important to note.

Another very important new addition in relation to probation is for a fixed-term contract, the length of the probation must be proportionate to the duration of the contract and the nature of work, and it can't be included in any renewal of a fixed-term contract for the same function.

Ultimately, I suppose a lot of people wrongly use fixed-term contracts still to use as kind of a performance management tool, which we know is not the desired effect of a fixed-term contract.

However, notwithstanding that, this even gives that now more weight to ensure they're not being used from a performance management perspective because when one expires, you can't have probation in the next one.

So, again, a very important point to note when you're updating your fixed-term contracts as well. That's a very important one.

I'm going to move on to the next clause. I appreciate there are probably loads of questions linked to probation alone and linked to the other two areas that we've covered. Again, you're welcome to put your questions into the questions and the chat section and we'll come to them at the end.

So, next, I'm going to look at exclusivity of service. Ultimately, many contracts up to this would have put in a piece to say, "The employee has to work exclusively with the employer and not have any other work outside of that unless they got written confirmation from the employer that that was acceptable".

However, an employer now can't do that anymore, and they can't prevent an employee from working for another employer outside of their work schedule, or treat the employee in any punitive way if they were to do that.

And that has already caused a lot of concern for employers where they're worried in relation to knowledge, in relation to intellectual property, etc. So the requirement to enhance those clauses is something you may need to consider, because this is very clear that you can't do it.

The restriction for another employer is permitted where it's proportionate and based on objective grounds, though. So if you have a very specific rationale, then you need to consider what that might be. And again, we're going to talk about what some of those may be.

I suppose that's referred to as an incompatibility restriction, and it must be along the lines of a list of objective grounds that they've already flagged, and it must be included in the provision of the contract. Seafarers and fishermen are excluded from this section.

The regulations have outlined some examples of objective grounds, but it's not an exhaustive list. And there are further grounds specific to the healthcare sector only. But specifically, these general grounds give you some ideas.

So if it's health and safety reasons, the protection of business confidentiality, the integrity of the public service, avoidance of conflict of interest, safeguarding productive and safe working conditions, protection of national security, the protection of critical national infrastructure, the protection of energy security, the administration of a vital public service function, compliance by the employer and the employee with an applicable statutory or regulatory obligation, for example, the maximum working hours an employee should work in a week, and compliance by the employee with any professional standards for the time being enforced.

So, again, there are specific additional ones, as I mentioned, for healthcare, and seafarers and fishermen are excluded from that.

If you are going to put in a clause of exclusivity of service, the important consideration is "Is it reasonable, and is it incompatible based on these objective grounds?" And again, it's outlined in the statement of terms, so the employee knows it.

I think a key other consideration to remember is if this is a part-time worker and they have more hours available, obviously that becomes part of their element of their arguing that they need to earn a living by working somewhere else, etc. And all those considerations would need to be considered here. So, again, just think about that.

But there are fairly broad objective grounds, I think, to give employers some comfort that if they have a valid objective reason, that will be addressed in that regard.

So very important, again, that you update your clause. As I say, most contracts would have an exclusivity clause, and now they need to change that to an incompatibility restriction.

So the next element I'm going to talk to you about is changes to the Organisation of Working Time. Like a lot of the European legislation that has happened in the last number of years, it's focussing on trying to strengthen the predictability of income for employees, and them being clear on what the working hours are they're required for, and being clear in terms of notification of their working hours.

And there's a requirement of at least 24 hours in advance of their shift to know, subject to unforeseen circumstances. That's an important one that they need to notify employees in relation to that.

So that just again adds an additional consideration, particularly in customer-facing roles like hospitality, etc., where there might be changes based on customers, bookings, etc. So, again, something to take into account.

And any projects or work assignment or work in general must take place within the reference hours and days notified to the employee. And again, if they can't do it outside of that, they can refuse it without any penalisation. So, again, it enhances that.

There's also a focus on collective agreements and making sure that collective agreements are outlined, and that's for employees who are covered by collective agreements.

I suppose this is, as I say, legislation right now. For many, there has been a big kind of "watch-out" because of the piece around not being prepared, probationary processes need to change, and that hasn't probably been addressed.

I think for a lot of employers, that is something that they really are struggling with right now in terms of rapidly changing their contract, deciding if they are going to do the one-week or the one-month, if they are going to do both. Our advice is to do both, and then subsequently going on to the other elements of that as well.

So delighted to take some questions maybe, I would say, Julie, at this stage because we won't otherwise have time.

The other point that I touched on briefly, but just maybe to emphasise it again. I touched on it when I was going through training as one of the terms, Julie. But again, where training is required by law or by collective agreement, to provide training to the employee so they can carry out their role, it must be provided free of charge and it must be done as working time, and ideally during working time if at all possible.

So, again, there are just additional considerations that I suppose we need just to be mindful of. Is that all right?

Julie:  Yes, that was great. Thanks. And that was a real overview, Caroline. Thank you very much for doing that. We have loads of . . .

Caroline:  Yeah, there's a lot in it, and I think for a lot of employers, we're just back. January seems to have flown by, and there's a lot in this to make sure you're compliant, isn't there?

Julie:  There is. There's a lot, and you can tell from the questions, which we have millions, I would say. We've tried to categorise them a little bit. These are people that have sent in questions before the session for us, and the good thing is that they overlap a little bit. So hopefully, even answering these, we'll get quite a few and then we'll see how many we can get through with our time that we have left, Caroline.

So I think the first area is really about those existing employee contracts, and you explained about the five-day deadline and then the difference between the month. But I think people are also asking about can they attach things like job descriptions as well? So if you could maybe elaborate on that for us please.

Caroline:  So I suppose our advice always, Julie, is that once a year you should always review your contract and handbook at minimum. We are in an environment that there have been so many new updates over the last couple of years from an employment law perspective that we know that the contract particularly complemented by the handbook are the key foundation documents that every scenario from an employment law point of view, we refer back to, "What did it say in the contract? What did it say in the contract policy document that the employees have?" Which normally is a handbook.

So, for me, the requirement to continually keep monitoring your contract and handbook at minimum once a year, and have that updated.

And then what that means is as you update it, your employees get an up-to-date policy document, which means you can incorporate a lot of the new elements that impact current employees that are with you a long time.

A number of the things that I mentioned, like mandatory training, like mentioning the sick pay scheme, for example, as part of another legislative requirement that has come in, you can put all those updates into your staff handbook. And ultimately, then, you're going to be meeting your obligation.

But anybody who has started since 16 December should have all these in their actual contract. So whether you've done the one-month or you've done the full contract . . . Which, again, I'm definitely advising to try and do one document to start with because it just avoids all that ambiguity and that grey. So the more comprehensive it is to start, I think the better it is.

Julie:  That's a great tip of as well about the handbook, because yes, as you say, there's so much that can change throughout the year as well, and that will help for any audits.

Caroline:  Remember, as well, I mentioned fixed-term contracts, for example. They also need to be updated and changed, etc. So any specific type of contract that you may have requires to be changed.

Julie:  All right. And I think we've got a question about fixed-term contracts as well and about probationary period, which is, as you said, Caroline, just a big area. I think the next three questions that we have are really about that.

So people are asking about the six-month probation, can it be extended? And the phrasing is "in the interest of the employee". So, really, what does that mean?

Caroline:  So basically what it means is the interest of the employee at the outset of their employment, they may need a longer probationary time to actually get competent with the role and meet the required standard.

So, as I mentioned, we have a specific client and they do what I would call very technical-related work, and their role requirements are very specific. So even if you come to work with them and have experience previously or have a degree, etc., you need to get specific technical training to be able to do what they do because it's so specialist.

So what that means is that as an employee, it's in your best interest that your probation in that role is nine months because it will take you that long to get competent to do the job. The training is done over a nine-month period. So that's an example of the best interest of the employee.

It's not designed that we're saying, "The employee is not performing, so therefore we're going to give them a longer probation". That's not what the legislation is focussing on.

So there's a really, really big requirement here to tighten up on our probation management. It's one of the big areas we're doing a lot of training on simply because a lot of managers would've used the extension of probation as a "kick the can down the road," terrible approach to making a decisive decision to say, "Is the person meeting the required standard or not?"

And sometimes that decision is not made because they actually haven't done the probationary meetings, they actually haven't done the assessment, etc., whereas now this is really highlighting this as a priority area for managers to be upskilled and trained to really make sure that they meet this obligation.

Julie:  Okay. So, as you say, it is about employers, just as you mentioned there about stepping up.

So the next question is, "Can an extension of a six-month probation be made for a further three months for not meeting required competency levels rather than the end of the contract?" Because that would obviously be in the employee's interest.

Caroline:  So again, you need to decide at the outset what a reasonable probation is to match the skills that you would expect the person to need to learn on the job or to settle into the role.

And then you need to explain that in the contract to say, "The time it should take you to be competent and achieve the required standard is six months", or seven months or nine months. But it's not designed that if they're not performing, we extend it.

Remember, though, the Unfair Dismissals Act still only applies after 12 months' service, but this is a new piece of legislation now that has an additional consideration for us in relation to managing probation. So my advice really is we need to tighten up the meetings.

Generally, there are very few employees that actually improve after we extend the probation if we have done a really good job of giving feedback in advance.

Normally, the problem is we actually haven't given any feedback and we only start in the extension phase, which is not really fair on the employee and not fair on the colleagues and the work environment because the person isn't obviously performing at the required standard. So that onus on us to try and address that earlier is a big one.

And remember, the ethos of this legislation is designed to avoid people being in a precarious work situation. For a lot of banks, to get a loan, to get a mortgage, etc., for an awful lot more things, they're very strict that if you haven't passed probation, they're going to take that into account.

So, again, that precarious phase of employment, that's the reason that this has been brought in. We avoid these extensions, so the employee hasn't longer periods of uncertainty in relation to their job security. So to do that is going against the ethos of the legislation, and shouldn't be something that we default to.

Julie:  Okay. From what I understand, it's more if the employee is maybe sick during their probationary period, and so you could justify that because you're actually trying to do that in their interest.

But one of the other questions I want to ask about was about fixed-term contracts, which has been asked about. Say somebody has a fixed-term contract for 12 months. So what would be proportionate, then, for a probationary period?

Caroline:  So, again, six months is the maximum that you can have it for. So you need to then decide is six months reasonable if they're with you for 12? And I would say yes, it is.

However, if the person was only with you for a six-month contract, then it would be more likely that you'd have them on probation for three months of the six months.

And again, if you needed it to be longer, you'd have to very objectively explain, "The contract is for six months. We have a four-month probation. The rationale for that is . . ."

So, again, it's back to reasonability, I would say, and that's how I'm assessing reasonability. We're doing it generally today because we have no specific scenario, but when we have a specific scenario, it makes it easier because we can say, "Okay, that's the job. That's the skills the person does". So it makes it easier for us to be able to kind of specifically do that. But I would say, Julie, that's a fairly decent, reasonable amount of time.

Julie:  All right. That's an interesting point to keep in mind about managers and those giving feedback and, as you say, timely feedback as well.

So the next question that's come up quite a bit too, Caroline, is about people that have been with the company for a number of years and then move into another role, and whether that probationary period then applies, or if perhaps they . . . Well, they're with one company, first of all, and then they have an internal move, and it's obviously a promotion. So would a probationary period still be applicable then?

Caroline:  I think, Julie, the key thing with this is . . . It's a tricky one because even now if the legislation never came in, we have an issue where the person has the service with the company from when they start. It doesn't start anew just because they've got a new role. So the Unfair Dismissals Act automatically applies if they have more than one year's service. So that's a really important point to note there.

Second point is if it's a case in a scenario like this that they have longer service with the company and they're going into an alternative role, we always say to outline what the consequences are if the person doesn't meet the required standard.

So, for example, "If you don't meet the required standard in X period of time based on the following assessment and criteria objectively by your manager, etc., then you will automatically go back to your previous role and your previous salary, and that's fully at the discretion of the company". To me, you would be very clear and explicit at the what-if scenario if that was to happen.

And again, remember we've got the O'Donovan case where it was very clear that it's very specific wording that's required should you wish to invoke a specific clause, whether the person is on probation initially or whether they're on probation transferring from one role to another.

So I would say clearly outlining the what-if, because ultimately that's a contractual agreement then the employee is signing up to as they take that new role, and that's the company's position then on "What if it doesn't work?"

So, again, very explicit wording required to go with that agreement, and that employee would need to sign that off so there's full clarity in relation to that.

Julie:  All right. Another question that did come up around that area is about subsequent fixed-term contracts, maybe having somebody in for 12 months and extending it. So would you still have a probationary period with that if the role was the same?

Caroline:  No. The legislation specifically says you can't. It can only be done for one fixed-term contract and it can't be done for repeat contracts.

And again, that would've been something that some employers would've relied on, and wrongly I have to flag, from a performance management perspective to have probationary periods in and non-renewal of contracts for that reason, etc.

So again, probation is only in the first contract. It's got to be a reasonable time linked to how long the first full fixed-term contract is. And again, it's just being aware that.

There are other clauses, Julie, we haven't touched on, and one is focussing on people who work kind of ad hoc hours, and they have then an option to request more predictable work. There's also information in relation to posted workers abroad, that they're entitled to more information, etc.

So just to flag to people that we've touched today on the most universal elements of this legislation. In a 45-minute session, we wouldn't get to it in that level of detail, but it is important for anybody to revisit the full legislation or liaise with a consultant like ourselves to do it for them and explain what changes are required to their contract.

Julie:  Okay. And I think we've got time to squeeze a last question in, Caroline, and then we'll finish off.

So payment for training, which is a big one. Because employers now have that responsibility for outlining that, people are asking can they still have things like clawback clauses? So if you provide maybe specialist training for them, something that's going to benefit them for getting another job, or just if the person leaves after you've spent and invested all this money in training them.

Caroline:  So what the legislation is saying is any training that's required by law or by a collective agreement. For example, if the person wants to do a very specific course outside of that, again, you do an agreement with them to say, "Look, Caroline, we're going to pay for you to do your MBA, but the obligation is you stay. The MBA is not a requirement of the job. You want to do it, you are asking us to support you, we're willing to support you, but this is the education policy and terms that go with that".

That's very different than to do your job, you need manual handling, and saying something like, "Before you start, you must have done that and paid for it yourself", or they must do the training outside of working hours. For example, watching a video, doing an online test, and then expecting that that wouldn't be considered to be working time.

So that's how the legislation is interpreted at the moment. But as always, Julie, like all legislation, we'll only really get the devil in the detail of this by it being tested. But the fact it's a European directive, it's in play. So I think that's a good thing.

I think, ultimately, the piece of legislation is quite clear in relation to all of the elements, the challenges. It represents quite a lot of change for us to get practically in place in our businesses, and I think that's why it's such a significant piece of legislation and why we focussed on it today.

Julie:  Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that focus, and I hope, people, that that answered some of your questions. Thank you very much for sending the others through. We'll try and follow up and see what we can do to help support.

So thanks very much, Maria. We just brought up the slide then to show you details of Caroline's company. I'd just like to thank Caroline as well for joining us today and giving us that great overview. But as Caroline said, there's a lot of detail in there, and so it may take a little bit extra going over.

So speaking about going over things, if you would like to listen to this as a podcast on either Spotify, Amazon Music, or Apple, again, you can just search for "Irish HR and Employment Law Developments" and catch up with us there.

And then next slide. Thanks very much, Maria. So just to let you know about some of our future events, including one with The HR Suite in a little bit. Our next event is about "Key Priorities for HR During a Cost-of-Living Crisis". It's online and it's also on 28 February.

Because the cost-of-living crisis is heavy on most people's minds at the moment, our upcoming event will help employers, HR professionals, and line managers look at the skills to support, reward, and retain, and also restructure their workforce, like some businesses are doing at the moment.

You can book your place at the online event for a special early bird rate, which is available until 17 February. And for more information, you can visit the Events section of our website at www.legalisland.com.

And then just for a couple of more events so that you can put the dates in your diary.

Next week, we have Duncan from A&L Goodbody on 9 February, at 11:00 a.m., looking through some key case law developments to keep you up to date once you've got all of this sorted out with predictable and transparent working conditions.

And then Caroline and I haven't set the next topic, but we have the date of 23 March, and I really hope that you'll join us.

So thanks very much, Caroline. Thanks to Maria for covering all the slides for us. And thanks, everybody, for joining us.

Caroline:  Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Julie.

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