Pick a protected characteristic, any one…

One of the golf clubs we look after received a grievance letter from a staff member recently. It started off with the claim that he was being “harassed, bullied and victimised” under the Equality Act 2010 (Which is always fun!). Wow, all of those things at the same time?! But the most telling part of it … Read more

Push button, avert disaster

One of our clients averted disaster recently, with just one push of a button. They’d received a grievance letter from an employee about one of their colleagues making rude and nasty comments about them. We held the grievance meeting, and the employee gave plenty of detail, and provided witnesses, making it a pretty cut and … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Consultant – Day 26: Christmas Decorations are religious discrimination!

Are Christmas decorations religious discrimination? No! Don’t worry, it’s not political correctness gone mad! Religious belief is protected by the Equality Act 2010. It doesn’t stop the display of Christmas decorations in the workplace. In fact, it doesn’t stop any traditional customs under religious discrimination. In any case, the vast majority of Christmas decorations, e.g. … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 11: Discrimination costs!

How much would you have to pay if you lost a discrimination case at tribunal – what is it capped at? Bad news – it is unlimited! Which is why all those female city bankers can claim millions of pounds in compensation. What irritates me more is when the NHS, who should know better, do … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 9: Avoiding expensive mistakes

So. You’re a small business with just a few employees, and managing them is one job you have to do yourself. And do it well. Learn from the costly traps that other employers have fallen into, with this free guide on the pitfalls you simply must avoid. Remember these are the seven biggest mistakes that … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 7: He’s pregnant?!

Right to time off for antenatal appointments Under the new shared parental leave it is proposed to allow the husband, civil partner or partner of the pregnant women the right to unpaid time off to attend up to 2 ante-natal appointments. Action: don’t laugh when a man asks for time to go to an antenatal … Read more

Tales of an HR Services expert – Day 2: Recruitment

Don’t do this! Recruit someone you find attractive (apparently most of us do!) Accept their word that they can do something – test them Reject them giving one of the protected characteristics as a reason (unlimited £££ tribunal claim)

Invasion of the Identity Snatchers

What, an invasion? Well, not that bad, but it is an area that employers need to protect themselves. From what? Identity fraud and unwittingly employing illegal workers. In Terminator they used dogs to sniff out the “intruders”, the robots. We need to use a much more banal way – seeing their photo ID! This might … Read more

Flexible working even more flexible!

Sometime this year, employers worst fears will be realised: EVERY employee will be able to request flexible working!

This is a change which was supposed to come into effect from April 2014, but somewhat strangely ACAS had not got the guidance finished on it in time, so the introduction of this new right has been delayed.

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My employee resigned, didn’t she?!

This case was frustrating because my client had really bent over backwards to help, and it had backfired badly. The employee had resigned, and then said that as she was intending to move up north, and things hadn’t been finalised, could she stay on till the end of term (this was in a preschool). My … Read more

Don’t do this!

Recruitment Recruit someone you find attractive (apparently most of us do!) Accept their word that they can do something – test them! Reject them giving one of the protected characteristics as a reason (unlimited £££ tribunal claim)

Discrimination – everybody’s doing it!

We all know that it is the others who are discriminating, we are obviously making rational decisions. However, after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink – The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” on holiday, I am less convinced that it is only the others. So as someone who is in business to make money and not … Read more

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