The business group Ibec has called for greater coordination in the delivery of proposed new employment legislation.
Ahead of its annual Employment Law Conference, Ibec says that the scale of recently promised regulations is creating challenges for businesses as it drives down opportunities for employers to offer flexibility and significantly drives up costs.
"Businesses are faced with an onslaught of employment rights-based legislation just as they are moving from the disruption of Brexit and Covid into the kind of inflationary environment not seen for decades," said Maeve McElwee, Director of Employer Relations at Ibec.
"Employers are being required to introduce in quick succession, Statutory Sick Pay, auto-enrolment for pensions, right to request remote working, new whistleblowing legislation and the promise of a Living Wage, among others," she added.
Ibec said that the new laws should be delivered through an effective coordination mechanism that manages them as an aggregate rather than in a piecemeal fashion.
"It is critical now that we reconsider this legislative burden in the broader context of coordination of social wage factors rather than incurring further government-imposed costs directly onto business," Ms McElwee said.
