Are you HR Healthy?

An HR Healthcheck is a good way of giving business owners peace of mind.  Given the choice of a maximum Employment Tribunal Award for Unfair Dismissal of £74200 or prevention by making sure your policies and procedures are correct for no more than a few hundred pounds, I know which one I would choose!

During an HR Healthcheck I will look at all of your policies and procedures. I will look to see if you have the essentials, and that they meet current legislation and good practice. For example do you follow the correct procedure for disciplinary hearings? If you don’t a tribunal could say it was automatically unfair, even if you only missed out one little sentence in your process but everything else was right.

I’ll check you’re calculating annual leave correctly – pro rating bank holidays for part time staff.  I’ll be looking to see if you have the processes to deal with absence and performance management. I’ll be looking to see what you do about Email and Internet abuse, how you handle data protection, what your process is for flexible working requests.

At the end of the healthcheck I will make recommendations so that you not only meet legislation, but good practice too. As an extra to the health check I can either update your policies or provide you with new policies and processes that suit your business. Not all businesses are the same, so it is important to make sure we get it right for you, whilst still meeting legislation. When there are changes to legislation that will impact on your HR Policies and procedures, I will let you know about them in advance. I can then update your policies, at an additional fee depending on what changes are needed.

If you do need new policies, I will make sure you understand them and your clear how to implement them. There’s nothing worse than having to waste time trying to work out what a policy means and how to use it.

SPECIAL OFFER 10 % off all HR Healthchecks, booked before 30 September 2013

 

What a Perfomance

I’ll declare now – my biggest pet hate in HR is managers who are not honest with their staff. How can a member of staff improve if they have been told that their work is ’fine’? 

Over the years I have had a number of managers appear at my desk to tell me that an employee is ‘useless’ and we need to move them on.  Ok, I say, let’s have a look at their last performance review, and see what you told them, and what targets you set. Would you believe it, you said they were great! An asset to the company! So what has gone wrong in the few months since you wrote that dear Manager? Nothing? They are the same as they were, but you were just filling the performance review form in to be kind.

Ok so I’ve merged many stories into one there, but they are all more or less the same.  The poor employee thinks they are doing a great job, because that’s what they have been told.  The rest of the team are fed up because so and so is not doing their job and the manager is doing nothing about it. It all makes a toxic situation that demoralises staff, and affects productivity.

A good manager is honest – they set clear achievable targets. If the employee then doesn’t achieve the targets, they look at why. Is there a training need?  Is there a lack of understanding? There then needs to be revised targets. If these aren’t achieved then the employee needs to be clear that failure to meet the required standard could mean they lose their job.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but it’s quite clear to me, an employee is paid to do a job, if they are not able to do that job even after additional support and training, then it’s time to move on. It’s not fair on any employee to be left in a role where they are constantly told they are not achieving – how demoralising! Nor is it fair on a company.

A clear performance Management policy will help support you, and then effective fair implementation is needed. All managers need to understand the policy, and understand how to have honest conversations with their staff.  

If you would like to discuss your performance management policy, or a performance issue, please get in touch!

Are you up to date?

The last 12 months or so don’t seem to have been so turbulent in Employment Law – or maybe I’ve just got used to the ever changing pace!

However rather than relax it’s a good time to check that your policies and processes are up to date.

A few to think about:

• Do you pro rata your bank holidays for part time staff?

• Are you confident your maternity policy is up to date to allow for up to 52 weeks leave and up to 39 weeks Statutory Maternity Pay? Do you ensure the job is kept for the person ready for their return from maternity leave?

• What about your paternity leave – does it state one or two consecutive weeks?

• Do you ask previous employers if new employees have used any of their parental leave entitlement? They can now take up to 18 weeks unpaid leave before the child is five.

• Flexible working – do you check employees are eligible to make the request, do they
put the request in writing, do you ensure that the employee advises how this will work,
and how the work will be covered. Do you consider flexible working requests within the time limit?

• Do you ensure that all disciplinary action follows the ACAS code of practice?

Many employers think that the law is on the side of the employee – but that’s not the case, you just have to follow the process. You don’t have to approve every flexible working request – if it doesn’t fit the needs of your business, you can suggest other hours, or refuse. 

The suggested sharing of Maternity leave is meant to come in during 2015. Nothing I have seen suggests this will be anything other than a procedural nightmare. Consultation is still taking place as to how this will work in practice. It certainly seems that the parents employers are going to have to communicate to discuss who is taking what leave. But that’s something to think about next year!

Employment law is there to support you, and your business. If you’re a bit unsure as to whether you’re on the right side of the law on any of the above, give me a call – it would be great to make sure the law is supporting you!

Julie Brewster
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