When you go to work, you want to feel comfortable and safe, and enjoy your job. If things are going well, you might not take the time to think about your rights as an employee. However, it’s still important to know and understand these rights, regardless of how you feel about your workplace, for a number of reasons. Read on to discover why being aware of your rights matters.
Handling bullying and discrimination
Unfortunately, workplace bullying is still quite a common issue and can make your working life unpleasant and upsetting. Worse still is if you’re being targeted due to a protected characteristic, which falls under workplace discrimination.
If you are not aware of your rights as an employee, you might not immediately recognise being taunted, excluded or being set unrealistic targets, and you may not know how to handle it. And this can be even harder to parse if your colleagues or employer are behaving in a discriminatory fashion, such as by using discriminatory slang or hiring different genders for different roles.
In both cases, you have legal protection on your side and should be able to access support both within and outside of your workplace.
Understanding whether your workplace is compliant
Knowing your employee rights can also help you see when you are working somewhere providing an unsafe working environment. Workplaces are expected to comply with certain legal standards, such as providing an environment that is properly heated and equipped for use and fully training employees before they use machinery.
Checking the expected pay for your role and ensuring that you have been properly trained and given suitable protective clothing where necessary could help to keep you safe at work – you should never accept less than this when it comes to your workplace.
Knowing if you have been unfairly dismissed
If you have lost your job, it is tempting to try and forget all about it and move on. But if this happens in a sudden way, and you are not prepared, this can be even more upsetting and distressing. However, it’s important to pause and understand whether you have been unfairly dismissed. This means that your employment has been brought to an end due to claims that you are not completing tasks which aren’t in your contract.
You may be entitled to a settlement or redundancy, so it’s worth taking the time to explore your rights in case of dismissal even before taking your position. This can help you to be prepared for every situation ahead of time, just in case.
It can feel overwhelming and stressful to understand your employee rights, and they can be manipulated in so many ways that it can be difficult to recognise when this is happening. Deciding to learn more about your rights as an employee is the most powerful move you can make, and might one day make a difficult situation a little easier to handle.
Meta: Understanding your employee rights and why they’re important could make difficult situations at work a little easier. Read our blog for more information.
