Monthly Archives: November 2018

Your Essential Employment Law Updates

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Keeping yourself knowledgeable and up to date about the latest in employment law isn’t easy when you’re running a business. Instead, you can rely on me to help you remain legally compliant. So here is my summary of a few of the topics we discussed at last month’s Employment Law Workshop:

Zero Hours Contracts

A zero hours contract is helpful for new businesses as they become established, and small businesses. However, it’s important to remember that employees under a zero hours contract are also entitled to the same statutory rights as any other employee, such as annual leave, sickness, termination, and so on. Even if they don’t work many hours.

Despite the fact that an employer is not obliged to provide work under a zero hours contract, the employee is required to accept it when it is offered and, arguably, this is sufficient to amount to mutuality of obligation.

ICO Fees from May 2018

Since GDPR was introduced, it is a legal requirement for all organisations to pay an annual data protection fee to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office).

There are three tiers of fee payments that are dependent on your organisation’s size and turnover. Some organisations, such as charities and small occupational pension schemes, only need to pay £40 regardless of size and turnover. The tiers are as follows:

  • Tier one – £40 annual fee
    • Organisations with a maximum turnover of £632,000, or ten or fewer staff
    • Charities
    • Small occupational pension schemes
  • Tier two – £60 annual fee
    • Organisations that do not fall into tier one and have a maximum turnover of £36 million, or 250 or fewer staff
  • Tier three – £2,900 annual fee
    • Organisations that do not fall into tiers one or two, and that have a turnover of over £36 million, and more than 250 staff

To register with the ICO, find out more and pay your fee, click here.

No Right to Work in the UK

When recruiting, it’s essential to thoroughly check the candidate’s right to work in the UK. This involves checking and taking copies of documents such as passports, proof of address, proof of residence, etc. It’s important that you see the original documents and that they are valid. Throughout this process, be careful not to discriminate against anyone based solely on their race.

Gov.uk says to check that:

  • The documents are genuine, original and unchanged, and belong to the person who gave them to you
  • The dates for the applicant’s right to work in the UK have not expired
  • Photos are the same across all documents and look like the applicant
  • Dates of birth are the same across all documents
  • The applicant has permission to do the type of work you’re offering (including any limit on the number of hours they can work)
  • For students, you see evidence of their study and vacation times
  • If two documents give different names, the applicant has supporting documents showing why they’re different, such as a marriage certificate or divorce decree.

Remember that the original permission to work in the UK can expire, so it’s important to make regular checks on your current employees – you could face civil or criminal penalties if you’re found to be employing people who do not have the right to work in the UK.

The Gov.uk website provides some useful guides to help employers do this.

Christmas Parties – Preventing Problems whilst Having Fun!

It’s always good to have work parties, both for the fun and to celebrate the season, and also to help keep morale high whilst rewarding staff for a good year. But parties are not always without their problems. Costing on average around £50 per head, I always recommend that an Office Party policy should be drawn up to set expectations on behaviour. Key points should be:

  • Christmas celebrations should be viewed as an extension of the workplace
  • Celebrate responsibly
  • Expect high standards of conduct while still having fun
  • Let your hair down, but not yourself or your employers
  • Employees should not post photographs or videos of themselves, colleagues or other attendees and third parties (e.g. venue staff) at the event on the Internet or any social media websites.

If you have any queries on current employment law legislation and how it affects your business, or any other staff issues, do call me on 0118 940 3032 or click here to email me.

What’s the Best Way to Look After Your People?

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This guest blog has been written by Jonathan Lane and Patrick Doyle at SR Consulting who provide insight, solutions and support to growing businesses.

The long term success of your business depends on a large number of factors. One of the most important areas that you need to consider is your people. Are you doing everything that you can to look after them? Are you giving them the training and personal development that they need? Are you giving them the skills they need to help you grow your business? Are you providing with them the motivation they need to stay with your business, through thick and thin?

If you sit back and hope that the people you recruit will perform perfectly and that your business will prosper, you’ll be disappointed. It’s essential that you manage the continuous development of individuals, teams and yourself. This includes developing the knowledge, skills and experience of both new recruits and current employees.

Developing and training your people includes skills training and learning achieved via courses or instruction and covers personal development through coaching, mentoring or self-learning. It applies to all the members of your team, and includes people with little ambition beyond doing the same job until retirement, as well as high flyers. Changes to the world of work through continuing advancements in technology mean that even the non high flyer will at some point have to learn something different, even if it is just a new software version.

People develop knowledge, skills and experience from the day that you appoint them and it continues throughout their employment. The work that people do will also develop as external factors change. Encouraging an environment of development can help your business to meet its evolving needs for performance and delivery as well as fulfilling the people in it. People who develop in a role can also use their new skills, knowledge and experience to help others.

Where Do You Start?

You may have worked for, or be working in, a business that has someone who is responsible for developing the people. However, thinking that it can be left to your ‘Training Manager’ or an HR department, and that it doesn’t have to feature in your role as a boss is a mistake. A conscious approach to engaging everyone in developing your people can ensure you have a team that is doing what you need it to do, in a way that is efficient and effective for all concerned.

Every business is different, so there is no set way of developing people. It will differ from person to person, and you as the boss will also be a factor. Whilst there is no magic formula for this, here are some basic dos and don’ts:

  1. Don’t just rely on holding an appraisal meeting once or twice a year.
  2. Don’t apply it just to the employees who want to take on more tasks and responsibilities, or who are eager for training or promotion.
  3. Don’t think it is just about sending people on training courses.
  4. Do recognise that developing all the people in your team is part of the day-to-day activities of being the boss.
  5. Do acknowledge that people will have different reasons for working and different ambitions in respect to their life and career. As a result they will have different personal development needs.
  6. Do remember that an approach that works for one person isn’t guaranteed to work for another.

If you cover these basics you will be able to grow a stronger, more sustainable business, maintaining the performance of your people and reducing employee turnover. If you need any help with finding the best way to develop the people in your particular business, we can help. Call Jonathan Lane on 07503 891 331 or Patrick Doyle on 07425 150 238, or click here to email us for a conversation about developing your people and your business.