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 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)

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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