Bag Drop

Bag Drop I’ve just got back from Gran Canaria. It was the holiday I’d been looking forward since the kids went back to school in January. But even though the prospect of the holiday was exciting, I wasn’t looking forward to the Easyjet ‘bag drop’ at Gatwick. The bag drop was brought in to save time, but … Read more

Stress at work is not considered to be a disability.

Stress at work is not considered to be a disability. Case law decisions this year are going really well for employers! Stress at work is not considered to be a disability. Which means if you have any employees who, once you start a disciplinary or redundancy process, go off sick with stress, you no longer … Read more

“Fake news” re employment law in the media

“Fake news” re-employment law in the media Panto now over, I have time to catch up with my television viewing. And my favorite at the moment is the most recent series of “Cold Feet”. Or at least it was until the end of the series. Let me explain. Karen, who has worked in a publishing … Read more

Changing ten-year old girls into rats

Changing ten-year old girls into rats

I am in a bit of a grump.

I feel that I have been conned, shanghaied, yes, even shamelessly lied to, by omission if nothing else.

And it’s all because of a pantomime.

Both my kids are in the local panto at the Corn Exchange, and I thought I’d do my parental bit and be a chaperone this year.

A not insignificant amount of paperwork later, I was in, feeling slightly apprehensive about the prospect of looking after 13 kids, 8 of whom I’d never met.

But it was chaperoning – how hard could it be?

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Final Written Warning

Employers rejoice – the eternal battlefield of employment law has made a small but significant shift in favour of the employer. And it’s in the area of disciplinaries. Some employees are extremely canny when it comes to the disciplinary procedure. They’ll push and push and push until it seems they can push no more, and … Read more

No insurance = no discrimination

No insurance = no discrimination Bit more formal this time, but I felt that it was important to talk about this, having read about employers who had, incorrectly, paid out. Private medical insurance, permanent health insurance (PHI) and life assurance are all insured benefits. This means that it’s the insurance provider who takes the decision … Read more

Squawking about squirrel hair!

Squawking about squirrel hair! I was in London, and my blusher brush had finally died a death after 25 years or so, so I decided to pop over to Selfridges on Oxford Street and grab a new one. (Guys, stick with me here – I’m not asking you for makeup tips!) Now, the last time … Read more

My late Christmas present to you…..

Hope you had a good festive period and you’re feeling well rested? Being back in the office is reminding me of all the things I said I’d do ‘in the new year’, that I have to do now! It’s always the way isn’t it? We’re all masters of procrastination, putting things off until later, because … Read more

AWOL

It seems to be in the air. Employees who either go off sick and then don’t come back, or others that just don’t show up for work one day. Key to dealing with this is to call us immediately you have someone absent and have no information where they are. On the same day ideally. … Read more

Yosemite

I’m “on the road” this month.  And no, I don’t mean driving to Newbury and Basingstoke.  I’m on the road like Jack Kerouac, cruising around America with my kids. I’ve just got to Yosemite, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. If you’ve never been here before, Yosemite is one … Read more

Holidays

Some wise old soul once said: “Take time for quietness and you will free yourself from being influenced by the wrong things” They had a point.  Especially when it comes to the workplace. You see, it’s that time of year again when the employees pour out, slap on their sun tan lotion and head off … Read more

Northern Ireland Comparisons

I was in Northern Ireland a few weeks ago, giving a presentation. Now given that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, you might assume that employment law is the same as it is in Great Britain. You’d be dead wrong. Employment law is different in Northern Ireland.  There are some subtle nuances (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 Consultancy Expert – Day 25: Check the DBS number!

When you employ a new person, it is important to check references. All you are looking for is confirmation that they really did work for that company as stated on their CV. More than that is unrealistic to expect nowadays. But what else do you need to have? In addition to the usual references, sometimes … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 24: Professional negligence?!

Professional negligence?! I do tribunal audits on employment contracts and handbooks so that the company knows what needs to be updated, how much risk they are at, and whether the documents are really “fit for purpose”. Once they have that knowledge, they can make an informed decision about whether they will be updating their paperwork … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 22: Employment tribunals

Big change! From 29 July 2013 disgruntled employees had to pay fees to start a tribunal claim. The minimum fee is £160 for a Type A case (e.g. unlawful deductions from earnings, i.e. you haven’t paid them what they are owed; unfair dismissal). Individuals can pay as much as £950 if they take a Type … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 21: Another happy client!

KCC Basildon is a Korean-owned manufacturer of silicone compounds, antifoams and emulsions. I started working with them on my HR Navigator package. Their line managers were good on the soft skills of managing, but unsure on the details of employment law. So we spent the next 12 months tightening up on exactly how to deal … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 20: Overtime doesn’t earn holiday!

Overtime doesn’t count towards holiday entitlement – or does it? The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decided on 4 November 2014 that any overtime worked does count towards an employee’s holiday entitlement. Yikes! What does that actually mean? It means that if you have in their contracts that they work 20 hours a week, and they … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 18: Not ugly enough!

Not ugly enough! Conventional wisdom says attractive people are more likely to be hired. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Two Israeli researchers send out CVs with pictures – rated according to attractiveness – for 2,500 different jobs. They found that handsome men were marginally more likely to get an interview, but that … Read more

Disciplinaries and solicitors

When can they bring a solicitor to a disciplinary meeting? When the consequences of them being dismissed would mean that they could never work in their profession again. Ever. The best example of this is a real case where a secondary school teacher was being investigated for inappropriate behavior with a pupil. If the teacher … Read more

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 14: Minimum Wage

Doing employees a favour doesn’t always work I was approached by a company to help with a situation that was baffling them. They had employed someone who wasn’t really as experienced as they would have liked, but they liked him and created a job for him. However what they also did was pay him less … Read more

Verbal warnings

When can you give verbal warnings to an employee?

Never! Verbal warnings were abolished in 2009.

At a recent talk I was asked “but can’t we keep using them, if they are part of our policies and procedures?”.

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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 8: Autobankruptcy!

Auto-enrolment? No! Auto-bankruptcy! The Government is really serious about auto-enrolment happening and you can tell because they are willing to make companies go bankrupt rather than avoid doing it! Well okay, that isn’t their stated intention, but look at the fines for not doing it. If you thought H&S fines of £20K for infringements were … 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)

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 1: they do resign!

Just to let you know, that sometimes problem staff really do resign without us having to follow the long process to fire them! The employee in question was approaching the end of her maternity leave. As she normally worked at a third-party site, we informed them that she would be back on site in the … Read more

The importance of being formal

Many employers don’t like to have formal meetings, i.e. in private, with closed doors, with staff who are not performing. They feel that an informal comment at their desk or the coffee machine will be enough for the person to understand the feedback and act on it. But as this incident that we had to … Read more

The show must go on!

I have had a great summer. It seems like the kids have been off for months! And one of the reasons that it has really felt like a holiday for me is that I have been to London to the theatre four times in the past 4 weeks! That might not seem much to you, … Read more

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

£4000 fisticuffs!

I went on a conflict management workshop recently. Which you might think is a bit strange, considering that a lot of my business comes from when conflict doesn’t get resolved. But believe me, I would have enough to do without sorting out playground fights! That became clear when Marc went through the amount of time … 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)

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