More than 400 legal and HR professionals are expected to attend the Ibec Employment Law Conference at the Royal Dublin Convention Centre on Thursday, April 10th.
“Employment law is changing and evolving all the time,” says Ibec head of employment law services Nichola Harkin. “We will be updating people on the latest developments again this year at the conference. It is always very interesting to hear from practitioners about the challenges they are facing and how they are overcoming them.”
This year’s conference will focus on the challenges of managing a multigenerational workforce. “Workplaces have five generations working together for the first time,” Harkin notes. “We will be looking at how that impacts on every aspect of employee relations. And we’ll be looking at areas like AI, social media, remote working, and auto-enrolment pensions as well.
“We’ll also be looking at what employers need to do to keep up with the sheer volume of new regulations facing them. We will go into detail on how companies and HR practitioners can prepare for what’s coming in the employment law space. It was welcome to see the emphasis on cost competitiveness in the programme for government but there is still a lot of regulation coming down the track.”
On the multigenerational workplace theme, the conference will hear from experts on how different generations’ priorities differ, the impact on relationships of having different generations, and different work styles.
“Younger generations tend to have a greater focus on work-life balance,” Harkin notes. “And then there is remote work. Where does it sit? Who wants it? What kind of organisations can offer it? There is also the leadership perspective, and we will be discussing how to lead in a multigenerational workplace.”
At the older end of the spectrum there is the issue of employees wishing to stay on after the normal retirement age.
“It’s a really complex situation and something we advise members on quite regularly,” says Harkin. “They may have a retirement age in the contract of employment, and we are now seeing some case law supporting retirement age in contracts and the offer of fixed-term contracts beyond that. There is also the WRC code of practice on longer working that employers can turn to. This is an area of great interest for employers.”
The digital workplace will also be up for discussion, with new rules on AI literacy now in force for employers: “This comes from the EU AI Act. A certain amount of training is required. This is a beast of a piece of legislation and even the guidance is 140 pages long. It’s not easy for people to get their heads around. There are things in there that impact employers, such as prohibited AI usages in areas like emotional recognition for recruitment purposes.”
The EU Pay Transparency Directive will also come under the spotlight. “A lot of employers are aware of it but not of the extent of its impact,” Harkin notes. “It will come into force in June 2026, but employers can’t afford to wait until then to prepare – they need to do it now. There is a big focus on work of equal value across different categories for work. To assess this will require a huge data gathering and analysis exercise.”
The directive will also require employers to disclose salary ranges to job applicants, forbid them from asking applicants about current or previous salary, and prevent employers from prohibiting the sharing of pay information by employees.
“It looks like it will be transposed into Irish law in tranches, and we will have to wait to see the Irish Government’s proposals in their final form,” says Harkin.
“Irish organisations are a bit ahead of the game in that we already have gender pay gap reporting here. The directive will bring an additional requirement where there is a gender pay gap of more than 5 per cent in any category of work that can’t be objectively justified. If that can’t be remedied within six months the employer will have to enter into a joint assessment process with workplace representatives to address the issue.”
There is a lot to do to prepare for the pay transparency legislation, Harkin points out, and therefore “it is best to start as early as possible”.
Other items on the agenda include recent changes to maternity leave legislation and new restrictions on the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
“The case law review is always very popular,” she adds. “We will be poring over some of the more interesting cases over the past six months and looking at the top five and what employers can learn from them. It’s going to be a packed day with a very packed agenda. It’s always really worthwhile and enjoyable day. It’s great to get a chance to catch up with familiar faces and some new ones.”
