In the light of the extremely complex and ever-changing business and human resources environment, including challenges to business performance, continuous rise in labor cost, employee’s emphasis on labor rights, poor-performing employees’ attempts to take advantage of legal loopholes, continuous amendments in employment law, and updates from recent court judgments, employers and human resources managers are to strategically and legally handle the extremely tough and complicated human resources issues, in order to ensure effective and legal human resources operations and the sustainable development of the companies.
This course is suitable for employers, corporate directors, managers and human resources managers and professionals.
I. Extremely Complicated Work Injury and Chronic Illness Issues:
1) In recent years, the number of suspected work injury cases has increased significantly. Employees with poor performance often use this as a way-out to avoid being dismissed by their employers. Employers must pay sick leave for work injuries on time in compliance with the law. After the insurance company denies the work injury case through legal procedures, it will not pay compensation to the employer, and the employer must recover the previously paid sick leave money by himself/herself. How can employers strategically deal with this in accordance with the law?
- Suspected work injury cases
- In what ways can employers stop paying periodical payment during work injury leave, to make the employee discontinue the suspected case and to settle the issue as soon as possible, and avoid criminal investigation by law enforcement agencies
- In many cases, injured employees would return to work but are injured again before the result of the medical assessment result is released. In what ways can employers delay the employee's return to work, in order to wait for the result of the medical assessment, and dismiss the employee in compliance with the law
- In what ways should human resources department solve the legal risks of dismissing employees with suspected of work injury, including unreasonable dismissal and disability discrimination
2) In recent years, the number of work injury or occupational disease cases involving mental health reasons (including work stress and bullying by senior staff) has increased significantly. Based on the case law, how should employers and human resources managers effectively handle work injury or occupational disease cases involving mental health reasons, and how to avoid other Common Law claims?
3) How to deal with the legal risks related to employees with chronic diseases in accordance with the law:
- According to case law, can the employer request the employee to undergo medical assessment before returning to work, in order to ensure that his/her physical condition meets the requirements for work?
- Regarding the risks of dismissing poorly performing employees with chronic diseases, what is the takeaway from court cases?
- Writing a comprehensive "Policy for Handling Employees with Chronic Diseases" in order to ensure compliance with the law when dealing with interests of relevant employees (The speaker will provide a sample of the policy)
II. Reasonable Dismissal of Poor-performing and Troublesome Employees:
4) Employers often misunderstand that there is no legal risk if they dismiss employees in accordance with the employment contract and law, such as providing payment in lieu of notice. In certain court cases, employees can still successfully claim for huge damage compensation for unreasonable dismissal. What is the takeaway from these cases? How should employers and human resources managers effectively prepare and deal with the issue?
5) It has always been a difficult issue for employers to dismiss extremely poorly performing senior staff. Recent cases have shown that breach of “fiduciary duty” is often a reasonable ground for the dismissal of senior staff. What is the takeaway from court cases regarding how to prepare and deal with this issue?
6) Recent cases show that senior staff who exports the company’s confidential information to his/her own private emails for personal benefits can be summarily dismissed. How should human resources departments formulate internal guidelines and define relevant confidential information as "trade secrets" (Note: in accordance with case law, employees must comply with the principle that they cannot disclose the trade secrets after leaving the company and at any time) to protect the interests of employers.
7) Based on case law, how should companies formulate effective restrictive clauses for “springboard injunctions” to prevent department heads and managers from leading subordinates to work for competitors, thereby causing a fatal damage to the employer’s business. (The speaker will provide contractual clause sample)
III. Impact and Legal Risks of Latest Amendments of Employment Law on Employers:
8) Since the abolition of MPF Offsetting Arrangement for long service payments or severance payments on 1 May 2025, how should employers and human resources managers effectively deal with the situation and ensure that the calculation of relevant benefits is correct? How can they more effectively obtain the maximum amount of government subsidies? In the long run, how can they cope with the rise in labour costs? (The speaker will provide the employee handbook provisions for the Offsetting Arrangement)
9) The Employment (Amendment) Bill 2025 has passed the amendments to the 4-68 requirement and will come into effect on 18 January 2026. What are the details of the amendments? How should employers ensure that part-time employees do not exceed the 4-68 threshold and avoid the need to pay benefits established under the continuous employment contract? What are the common legal risks in handling the benefits of part-time employees?
10) The Miscellaneous Amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance was passed in 2023. The criminal liability and penalties faced by employers for violating the Ordinance has been greatly increased. The procedures for law enforcement agencies to prosecute employers for violations have been greatly simplified. In cases of more serious work injuries, law enforcement agencies may conduct surprise inspections. How should human resources departments prepare for such inspections and ensure compliance with the legal requirements, to avoid unnecessary criminal prosecutions?
IV. Human Resources Measures to Better Protect Employers’ Interests:
11) Facing the problem of increasing labor costs, how should human resources managers introduce the "Prior Consent" clause from the "Contract Law" into contracts or employee handbooks, in order to allow for more flexibility and legal convenience in amending the salary and benefits without obtaining the employee's consent?
12) There are cases where the company receives complaints of sexual harassment from employees and the allegation is deemed true after investigation. The employer would often dismiss the employee for the infringement. In a similar case in 2023, the employer lost the case and was said to have violated the Sex Discrimination Ordinance. What is the takeaway for employers, human resources management and equal opportunity policy?
V. Human Resource Policies and Measures to Avoid Criminal Liability:
13) Human resource managers generally believe that employees cannot be dismissed unlawfully during paid sick leave, and can be dismissed legally during unpaid sick leave. However, in recent years, court cases show that employees have argued using a High Court case that sick leave that spans Saturdays, Sundays (rest days) rest days should not be considered sick leave, and that employers unlawfully dismissed them during their paid sick leave. How should employers avoid the risks?
14) In recent criminal court cases, it is shown that regarding the violation of Sections 17I and 17J of the Immigration Ordinance, the person convicted and sentenced to imprisonment is not the employer or the executive director, but the corporate management or frontline manager. What can be learned from these cases, regarding how the human resources departments should formulate relevant "defense" measures?
15) In recent years, the number of legal prosecutions for violations of the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Ordinance has increased continuously. What takeaway can be learned from the latest cases for the human resources departments and how should they avoid the risks?
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