A branch of Connells has been named on a government website’s ‘name and shame list’ for failing to pay a member of staff the national minimum wage.
The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills posted a list of 92 employers over the weekend; between them they owed over £1.873m in ‘arrears’ to staff.
One of them was: “Connells Residential, trading as Connells Estate Agents, Leighton Buzzard, failed to pay £2,049.14 to 1 employee.” The case was described as having been “thoroughly investigated by HM Revenue & Customs.”
Business minister Nick Boles is quoted in a statement accompanying the list as saying: “As a one nation government on the side of working people we are determined that everyone who is entitled to the National Minimum Wage receives it. There is no excuse for not paying staff the wages they’re entitled to. Our policy of naming and shaming employers who ignore the law means there are consequences for their reputation as well as their wallets.”
In April the government is introducing a new National Living Wage which will mean pay rises of over £900 a year for those working full time on the minimum wage.
“We will enforce this equally robustly” says Boles.
Connells this morning issued a statement which said it was disappointed to be included on the list.
“This was an isolated administrative error regarding just one member of staff which, once identified, was immediately corrected and the outstanding monies owed were paid to the individual concerned. The Connells Group employs over 6,000 people, and is fully aware of the NMW requirements. We seek to reward all our people fairly and the vast majority earn significantly more than the NMW” the statement said.
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why has OTM stopped advertising ,on property industry eye ? That's the real Story of the day
Wow this isn't great - one list no firm would want to be included in....No excuses, a poor show's a poor show.
Yep, this is a pretty poor show. A bit of a PR own goal from Connells - I hope they act quickly to rectify this.
ah well I'm sure the CMA know what their doing all the evidence has been gathered
Whether it was simply an admin error or not, this is not a good story for Connells, I bet they're kicking themselves over it. This isn't somewhere where they would want their name to be mentioned in the slightest.
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