Tag Archives: HR advice

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.

The Importance of Developing Recruitment Shortlisting Criteria

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The Importance of Developing Recruitment Shortlisting Criteria

When you need to recruit, do you follow a specific procedure? Do you have effective shortlising criteria? If not, you may end up with problems, waste a lot of time and money or employ the wrong person.

It only takes some simple, common-sense steps to ensure a smooth recruitment process. Read on to find out more about how and why you should develop effective shortlising criteria for successful recruitment drives.

Why should you develop a process?

There are four key reasons why you should develop an effective shortlising process for each role, regardless of the size of your business:

  • Legal implications – to avoid a tribunal claim for discrimination
  • Ensuring a suitable quality of candidates for the role
  • Time and cost – criteria that’s not stringent enough could mean shortlising unsuitable candidates
  • Employer reputation – a fair recruitment and selection process can have a significant impact on your brand, as applicants will appreciate a positive experience even if they’re unsuccessful

Here’s how to do it. First, refer to your job description, person specification and competency profile for each role and list the essential shortlisting criteria, which could include: 

  • Educational qualification or equivalent – for example a graduate position requiring a 2:1 minimum degree
  • Experience – such as a secretarial role needing Minute taking experience
  • Skills – an HR role requiring experience using a specific software, for example
  • Knowledge – such as a social media role needing knowledge of a range of social media tools
  • Behavioural competencies – e.g. an accountancy role needing evidence of influencing at Board level.

When deciding on the ‘essential criteria’, you could also include ‘desirable criteria’. This helps to distinguish between candidates who meet only the essential criteria for the role, and those who offer additional relevant qualities. Asking others to help you develop the shortlisting criteria provides useful discussion to identify ‘essential’ versus ‘desirable’ criteria.

Next, assess applications against the shortlisting criteria to screen out unsuitable candidates.

Telephone Screening Interviews

One screening option is to conduct brief telephone interviews with applicants as a second screening stage, after establishing that candidates satisfy the basic qualifying criteria for the role.

Telephone interviews can be time consuming, but are useful for telephone-based roles, such as a call centre adviser, as you have an opportunity to assess applicants’ verbal communication skills. A script setting out what questions to ask will help to ensure consistency across all candidates. You may also want to use a telephone screening interview to establish or confirm any queries you may have on their application and to assess the verbal communication skills of the candidates.

At this early selection stage, a 20-minute telephone conversation should be sufficient.

The Shortlisting Process – Scoring, Ranking and Weighting

The next stage is to shortlist candidates. An assessment form will help the shortlisting panel to record the relevant evidence in support of its decision, and proves you carried out a systematic approach.

The categories listed should relate to the shortlisting criteria for the role; for example, qualifications, work experience, level of responsibility, competencies and salary level. Include a section for comments to highlight areas to probe at the next selection stage for shortlisted candidates.

A scoring and weighting system helps the shortlisting panel to rank candidates in an objective and consistent manner. Rate each candidate against each category of the criteria using the rating scale 1-5, with 5 indicating that the applicant ‘exceeds requirements’ and 1 indicating that he or she ‘just meets requirements’.

Next, apply weighting to your shortlisting criteria by attaching different levels of importance to certain criteria according to its level of relevance to the role. Use a simple 1-3 weighting framework where 3 indicates ‘very important’, 2 indicates ‘important’, and 1 means ‘quite important’.

Once candidates have been allocated a total score, they should be ranked in order of their scores.

Avoiding Bias and Discrimination in Shortlisting

Using appropriate shortlisting criteria helps to avoid bias and discrimination. Without criteria, your organisation may end up with an unsuitable pool of candidates, and claims of discrimination will be harder to defend. To help prevent this, ensure that only relevant information is considered by removing all personal information on CVs and application forms prior to shortlisting.

One potential challenge relating to discrimination is length of experience. Asking for a minimum number of years’ experience can lead to age discrimination, as a younger job applicant has not had the opportunity to accrue a specific number of years in a role. Further, shortlisting candidates based on years of experience could mean discriminating against women who took time out to raise children, or applicants who needed time away because of a disability. Therefore, consider what a candidate with the relevant experience should be able to do and define the job requirements in those terms when developing the shortlisting criteria.

And finally, to prevent bias and discrimination, avoid making assumptions! The shortlisting process should consider the evidence supplied by a candidate to demonstrate how they meet the shortlisting criteria – don’t make assumptions not based on factual evidence.

Register Now for the Autumn Employment Law Update Workshop!

If 25 October 2018 isn’t in your diary already, put it in now!

Not only will you be able to learn about the latest changes in Employment Law, but you will also benefit from hearing Jenny Collis, of Fit&Able, speak about keeping your employees healthy at work. Back and neck pain, and upper limb symptoms are the most reported musculoskeletal complaints in the workplace. As an Occupational Health Physiotherapist, Jenny will highlight the most common complaints, review your employer’s obligations and provide strategies and solutions for management in the workplace. This is one not to be missed.

Running from 9.30am to 1pm, the venue is The Meeting Room at Hennerton Golf Club in Wargrave, Berkshire, and the cost is just £20 plus VAT to include refreshments. For more information, click here, or to go direct to our Eventbrite page and book online there.

Dismissal for Some Other Substantial Reason: Demystified – Part Two

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In a recent blog post, I set out the reasons that an employer could dismiss an employee under the ‘dismissal for some other substantial reason’ (SOSR) clause. There, I went into detail about how to manage an awkward situation where a third party – usually an important client – states that they no longer want one of your employees on their site. Click here to read it again, or if you missed it.

In this month’s blog, I’m focusing on the problem of when employees refuse to work with colleagues.

Refusal to Work with Colleagues

In most walks of life, we’re free to choose our friends. But at work, we have little influence on who we work with. Often, there’s no issue – even when employees don’t like each other, they usually tolerate one another. But when a group of employees refuse to continue working with one of their colleagues, what can you do?

Reasons why employees might refuse to work with a colleague include:

  • Serious personality clashes
  • Discovering their colleague is HIV positive
  • An employee becoming ‘socially unacceptable’, e.g. by having objectionable behaviour, or criminal convictions or charges, e.g. child pornography or sexual offences

Initial Action

As soon as you’re informed of a situation, don’t delay! Act early to stop a minor problem escalating into a situation where dismissal is demanded. Investigate what is behind the breakdown in relationships by interviewing and taking statements from all the relevant parties. From that, try to persuade the employees to patch up their differences, taking whatever constructive measures necessary to alleviate the situation. Depending on the breakdown reason, measures may involve allaying concerns or fears, and even arranging an education programme, for example where the objections centre around an employee being HIV positive.

Try not to be easily swayed by employee pressure, particularly if the allegations are based on groundless prejudice, are unreasonable or are a complete overreaction. You may even have to consider disciplining the protesters if their actions amount to bullying or harassment of the employee in question. This may not feel like a palatable option as this could lead to even further disruption of the workforce, but you need to protect your business interests, and widespread disruption is bound to be a threat to profitability and customer relations.

Where employees’ objections are well founded, it may be appropriate for the employee with whom the problem has arisen to be disciplined if the issue is misconduct or offensive behaviour. The fact that you are tackling the issue may be sufficient to calm the situation down and appease your staff.

Employee Pressure to Dismiss

Dismissal from employee pressure should always be a last resort. If all the steps taken to alleviate the situation and improve work relations hasn’t worked, and the breakdown is clearly irreversible, then it may be possible to dismiss the employee on SOSR grounds.

Remember that the reason for dismissal must be substantial. So if disruption amongst the employees is seriously harming your business, then you have no choice but to dismiss. A tribunal will want to see evidence pointing to an ultimatum having been served on the employer by the employees. Often, employees will use the ‘It’s him or us’ pressure tactic, which should be sufficient if the relationship breakdown can be reasonably assessed as irremediable. However, this conclusion can only be reached after you have taken all reasonable steps, short of dismissal, to improve the situation.

If the relationship breakdown only affects two employees, it’s much more difficult to successfully plead SOSR as fair reason for dismissal as this situation is unlikely to be deemed ‘substantial’.

If all your attempts to improve relations are unsuccessful and the reason for dismissal is indeed substantial, an employment tribunal will explore whether the dismissal of the employee was reasonable in all circumstances. The tribunal will consider whether the objections of the workforce were reasonable, or whether they were motivated by malice or blind prejudice, making the dismissal an injustice to the employee. Unfairness to the employee is an essential part of the equation.

The tribunal will also explore your conduct and the procedure you went through to reach the decision to dismiss. Part of that procedure is considering whether the employee can be given alternative work, or be relocated to another workplace, with his or her agreement.

HIV

If your staff are pressurising to dismiss an employee who is HIV positive, usually because of fear of infection, you will need to take the necessary action to counteract what is unwarranted prejudice, and to protect the employee from bullying and harassment. Allay groundless fears by educating staff about the transmission of HIV and the fact that it imposes no risk to others from normal work or social contact. Remember that an HIV positive person is automatically deemed to have a disability under the Equality Act 2010. Therefore, you risk a disability discrimination claim and a claim for unfair dismissal if you dismiss an HIV-positive employee from staff pressure. As HIV disproportionately affects gay and bisexual men, you also risk a sexual orientation discrimination claim. It’s essential that you protect the employee from harassment by colleagues, which may involve taking disciplinary action against the employee’s colleagues.

If efforts to consult with staff to allay their fears fail, it may be appropriate to transfer the employee to alternative employment, with his or her agreement, rather than considering dismissal.

Employment Law Update Workshop

Join us at our next Employment Law Update Workshop on 25 October 2018 for just £20 +VAT. Click here to book your place online. Come along and ask all your HR questions!

Dismissal for Some Other Substantial Reason: Demystified – Part One

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The whole dismissal process can be a minefield for employers, so it’s important to understand the differences. I wrote about those differences in a recent newsletter, but the term ‘dismissal for some other substantial reason’ (SOSR) needs further clarification.

There is a danger that some employers use SOSR as a convenient way to get rid of unwanted employees. But there really must be a good, reasonable and substantial reason for doing so. You must demonstrate that you followed a fair procedure, because if you didn’t, an employee can successfully claim unfair dismissal.

Under Section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the potentially fair reasons for dismissal are:

• Capability
• Conduct
• Redundancy
• Contravention of a statutory duty or restriction
• Or, if none of these apply, ‘some other substantial reason (SOSR) of a kind such as to justify the dismissal of an employee holding a position which the employee held’

Examples of dismissals that could be held for SOSR include:

• Non-renewal of the fixed-term contract of an employee recruited as maternity leave cover
• The dismissal and re-engagement of an employee to impose new contractual terms and conditions that the employee has refused to agree
• A dismissal because of a personality clash between employees that makes it impossible for them to work together
• Dismissal of an employee where there are concerns relating to the safeguarding of children or vulnerable adults, but where the employer does not have grounds for a misconduct dismissal

Client Refuses to Have an Individual on Site

Another valid reason for using SOSR is when a client reports that they no longer want one of your staff members back on their site. Naturally, you need to protect your commercial interests and maintain a good business relationship with the client, but you must also balance the employment rights of the employee.

If you were to dismiss the employee without taking any steps to find a solution, or take account of any injustice towards the employee, you run a high risk of a successful unfair dismissal claim against you. But if you have acted reasonably and investigated fully before deciding to dismiss, SOSR can safely be used as a fair reason for dismissal.

What’s the Problem?

Firstly, investigate why the client has objected to the employee to see if the problem could be resolved. If the reason is evidently misconduct at the client’s workplace, then it needs to be dealt with accordingly using your disciplinary procedure. Where the reason is less clear, such as the client disapproving of a particular working practice, the employee could be asked to change their process to match the client’s needs.

When the situation is serious, a tribunal will need to be satisfied that you have taken the appropriate steps to find any scope for resolution. Ensure you have a written record of discussions with the client when trying to resolve the problem; ask them to provide their objections in writing. If you cannot establish the truth of the client’s allegations, or do not agree with their actions, the commercial pressure on you both may still provide sufficient grounds for a fair dismissal on SOSR grounds.

What About the Employee?

If your client is adamant that there can be no satisfactory resolution, and that the employee should not return, it’s important to consider what injustice might be caused to the employee when deciding whether to dismiss. For instance, how long have they worked for you? How satisfactory has that service been? What are their prospects on the labour market? Case law has shown that none of these factors is conclusive, but should all be considered prior to dismissal.

What other alternatives are there rather than dismissal? Could you offer redeployment within your organisation? If it’s large enough, there may be a different type of job that your employee could do.

The Employee’s Contract

Your case will be strengthened if the employee has been warned that the client may intervene to have him or her removed. These days, many commercial contracts include a clause stating that the client may ask the employer to remove any employee whom the client considers unsuitable. It would help to include this in the employee’s contract of employment, as it shows reasonableness when acting on third-party pressure. Your employees should also be informed of the importance of maintaining good working relations with clients during their induction. The induction is also an ideal time to reiterate the client’s right to insist on the removal of employees.

In Part Two of Dismissal for Some Other Substantial Reason: Demystified, I’ll cover the difficult subject of refusal to work with other colleagues. Look out for that one coming soon.

Meanwhile, if you need any further advice on dismissal or any other staff issues, do call me on 0118 940 3032 or click here to email me.

Health and Safety in the Office

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This blog is a guest post from Quadriga Health and Safety – experts in keeping employees and experts in keeping employees and business healthy and safe at work.

Office health and safety is often overlooked in business. Many office jobs, like sitting at a desk and typing at computer, don’t seem to suggest much risk. However, working in an office environment can present many hazards each day. If your business is based in an office, or includes an office, as a manager you have a legal responsibility to keep that environment safe for people to work in and ensure that effective fire precautions are maintained.

This blog explains what you should consider to provide good health and safety in an office.

Carrying Out an Office Risk Assessment and Making Changes

When you employ five or more people, you have a legal obligation to have a written Health and Safety policy. Part of the process of putting together a policy is to carry out a risk assessment. In an office, this should involve identifying the hazards and risks across the whole office area and evaluating them, before making changes and putting processes in place to mitigate them. A fire safety risk assessment is also required, laying out how fire risk is minimized and what precautions such as fire alarms, fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, fire doors and staff training are required.

Hazards and changes could include removing computer wires that are trailing across the floor, or placing a carpet along the floor of a slippery corridor. You should record all the information – hazards, changes you make and the controls required – and keep it on file for future reference.

Creating a Health and Safety Induction for Your Office Staff

Many potential office hazards, which can lead to accidents and injuries, can be caused by your staff. This could include an employee:

• Tripping over a box of files that have been left on the floor
• Obstructing electrical equipment or placing combustibles near heaters
• Falling off a chair after using it to reach items on a high shelf
• Causing a filing cabinet to topple over after leaving a heavy cabinet drawer wide open
• Injuring their back after bending down to carry a heavy box of printer paper
• Obstructing a fire exit leading to difficulty or dangers in evacuating a building
• Suffering a neck injury from sitting uncomfortably at a desk when working on a computer
• Wedging fire doors open.

To prevent such accidents from happening, you should put processes in place and make sure your staff follow these rules whenever working in the office. One way to do this is to have each member of your staff complete a health and safety induction, including new employees when they join your company. This could involve them watching official videos about potential hazards in the office and how to avoid them, as well as training sessions about the safety procedures they should follow. You could also provide leaflets and display posters to remind staff about office safety. Also consider a first day induction on fire safety, the importance of fire precautions such as keeping fire doors closed, how to raise the alarm, how to evacuate the building and the escape routes and assembly points.

Safety Procedures for Your Staff to Follow in the Office

These could range from instructing employees to do simple things, like:

• Shutting filing cabinet drawers after using them
• Keeping corridor floors and doorways free from clutter
• Using a step ladder, rather than a chair, to reach something on a high shelf
• Taking part in regular fire drills.

You could also provide them with training to follow more detailed procedures, such as:

• Knowing how to make sure an office chair and computer screen are set at the correct height to avoid neck and back injuries when typing at a desk
• A step-by-step process of the correct technique to bend, lift and carry heavy items
• The process they should follow when reporting an accident
• Knowing what to do in the event of a fire, including training on how to raise the alarm, use a fire extinguisher and the process of exiting the building safely.

To ensure that staff carry out such processes correctly, you should also provide the right equipment for them. This includes items like stepladders and adjustable office chairs, as well as an accident book to report any accidents that take place.

Quadriga Can Help You with Office Health and Safety

You should always ensure you provide effective health and safety, whatever company you run, whether it’s an office, shop or factory. With our expert health and safety service, we can provide you with what you need to keep you, your team and your business safe. We hold regular training courses and seminars and can also provide you with tailored consultancy. To find out more, please call Quadriga on 0118 929 9920 or click here to email us.

Sickness Absence – How Should You Handle it?

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Every employee will invariably be sick and unable to work from time to time. It is important to keep in contact to establish any support they need and when you can expect them to return to work. In extreme circumstances, or where you suspect the sickness my not be genuine, it may be necessary to terminate a contract of employment but you must follow a fair procedure first – do you have the correct processes in place?

Short Term Absence:

• Discuss the problem with your employee as soon as possible and keep lines of communication open at all times
• Monitor the absence and document the ‘calling in sick’ process. Can your employee complete a self-certification notification or do you require a letter from their doctor?
• Once your employee is fit to return to work, make sure you have all your ducks in a row and that you conduct a return to work interview
• If necessary instigate a formal action process including warnings and dismissal, only as a last resort
• Learn from employee absence, conduct reviews and look for patterns that can help you to avoid absence in the future.

Long Term Absence:

This is when a period of absence exceeds four weeks in duration. In these instances your employee is required to provide medical support.
• Keep in regular contact with your employee and help to obtain medical advice that will assist in their return to work
• Avoid the risk of disability discrimination by taking your duty of care seriously and making all necessary adjustments
• Manage their return to work effectively, consider a phased return where necessary
• If your employee is unable to return to work, take the right steps to instigate dismissal on the grounds of ill health.

Dismissal is always a last resort. Factors that must be taken in to consideration before heading down this path include:

• The nature and length of the illness
• Length of service and previous record
• Any improvement in attendance
• The effect of absence on colleagues and the business as a whole
• Whether there are other employment options available.

The key to managing staff sickness is to keep in communication with your employees at all times. Don’t be afraid to contact a member of staff who is on sick leave. Don’t leave the situation to get out of hand.

If you have a member of staff who keeps taking sick leave, or who is on long term sick leave and you’re not sure what to do next, contact me on 0118 940 3032 or click here to email me.

Helping Employees in the Lead Up to their Retirement

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The thought of retirement for the employee can be mixed – a relief, exciting, or even tainted with a dread of the unknown. Especially if they haven’t made any firm retirement plans. Alternatively, they may be planning to work until they’re 70, as recent research undertaken by the CIPD shows that many people feel this will help them to remain mentally fit.

Whatever the employee’s feelings about retirement, as an employer you need to be as supportive as possible on the lead up to retirement. You also need to be careful about how you approach people who you feel may be nearing retirement age. It could be that your employees don’t want to retire yet, and you may be accused of age discrimination.

Due to a change in the law introduced on 6 April 2011, employers can no longer compel employees to retire at a specified age, unless the requirement to retire is justified objectively – for instance, if your organisation relies on a certain level of fitness to perform their job functions effectively, such as within the construction industry. This change in legislation means that employees can choose to retire when they want.

The law now means that you cannot use retirement as an excuse to dismiss employees who might be experiencing difficulties with their work, for whatever reason. Instead, all employees of all ages should be treated fairly and equally when appraising past performance, or when providing training and development opportunities. Doing this regularly will help to prevent capability issues from arising.

Treating older employees differently from younger employees could amount to age discrimination, which could, unless justified, be unlawful. For example, if you disregard inadequate performance on the part of a 65-year-old employee on the assumption that he or she will be retiring soon, but deliver heavy criticism to a 25-year-old employee whose performance is similarly inadequate, the difference in treatment would amount to age discrimination.

Similarly, if the employee indicates during an appraisal interview that he or she is considering retiring soon, take care not to discriminate against him or her. Instead, you could begin to make future plans if the employee does decide to retire.

Dos and don’ts

  • Do continue to treat the employee in the same way as you would treat other employees, for example in the provision of training opportunities.
  • Do adjust the employee’s performance expectations proportionately if they indicate that they would like to work reduced hours in the run-up to retirement, and if you can accommodate this.
  • Do discuss with the employee how they could pass on their knowledge and skills to other staff in the run-up to retirement.
  • Do discuss succession issues with the employee, for example how they might be involved in training a replacement for the job.
  • Do reassure the employee that they can change their mind about retirement if they wish.
  • Don’t say or do anything that might amount to age discrimination against the employee.
  • Don’t assume that, if the employee indicates that they plan to retire at a particular time, they will do so. Until the employee actually hands in his or her notice, communication of an intention to retire is not binding on the employee. You could, however, remind the employee of the requirement to give notice under the employment contract, and the length of the notice period.

By being mindful of both your legal requirements and your employees’ needs, and acting accordingly, means that your business is not only helping your employee during this often difficult transition in their lives, but you are also protecting, or even improving, your organisation’s reputation as a good employer.

For any further advice on how to help your employees retire well with the least disruption to your business, do call me on 0118 940 3032 or click here to email me.

How GDPR Compliant Is Your Organisation’s HR Data?

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The main principle behind the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect on 25 May 2018 is to protect people from having unnecessary data stored about them, and for too long. In fact, there are seven main principles that you will need to keep in mind when processing personal data, being:

  1. Lawfulness, fairness and transparency – you will no longer be able to charge a fee when you receive a request for data held, and it must be provided within a month
  2. Purpose limitation – data must only be collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes
  3. Data minimisation – it must be adequate, relevant and limited to the purposes required
  4. Accuracy – every reasonable step must be taken to ensure that inaccurate personal data is erased or rectified, without delay
  5. Storage limitation – personal data should not be kept for anything other than the purposes for which it is being processed, or for longer than necessary
  6. Integrity and confidentiality – data must be processed using appropriate technical or organisational measures to ensure its security
  7. Accountability – you will need an officer or someone in your organisation to be responsible for, and able to demonstrate, compliance with these principles

Conduct an audit now!

It’s important that an audit is carried out as soon as possible prior to 25 May 2018. When preparing for GDPR, it may be necessary for various departments – IT, Legal, HR and Compliance – to collaborate, ensuring that data security is robust.

  • The audit needs to assess current HR data and related processing activities to identify any gaps with the GDPR.
  • Assess the legal ramifications on processing personal data. Although consent is currently necessary, it may not meet the more stringent GDPR requirements. Keep in mind that consent may be revoked at any time. You may need to rely on other legal grounds to continue to process employee personal data, but if it can’t be justified you must cease those processing activities.
  • If your business is in an industry that’s highly regulated, you may be able to rely on compliance with a legal obligation as a basis for processing certain employee data. For example, some financial services employers need to provide and update regulatory references for staff for up to six years after the end of employment. Or if you operate in a safety critical environment, you could rely on health and safety risks to justify more intrusive processing of employee data to establish fitness to work, for example.
  • Review or implement documentation. This information must be written in a way that is easy for employees and job applicants to understand, and should include three key documents:
    • Data Protection Policy
    • Privacy notices for employees and job applicants
    • Data Processing Consent documents as signed by your employees
  • To maintain the GDPR principle of data minimisation, you will need to delete data once it is no longer necessary. For this reason, as well as the rights of ex-employees and other data subjects requiring erasure or the restricting of data processing, consider the retention periods of your HR personal data. If you already have a data retention policy, check whether the existing retention periods for HR data can still be justified. You must pay particular attention to matters such as disciplinary warnings, and data retained after the end of employment.
  • Data breaches will need to be reported to the data authority within 72 hours of the breach occurring, so ensure a strict procedure is put in place. Allocate responsibility to certain people to investigate and contain a breach, and to make a report. Train employees to recognise and address data breaches, and put appropriate policies and procedures in place.
  • You may need to appoint a data protection officer, either through recruitment or by training an existing staff member. They will be the accountable person and will liaise with the data protection authority.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) recommends 12 steps that you should take now, which you can access here. Or speak to me – I will be delighted to help you make sense of the new GDPR and how its principles should be applied to your organisation.

Helping You 

If you need help becoming GDPR compliant, I can provide your business with the documents that you need, which are:

  1. Job applicant privacy notice
  2. GDPR compliant data protection policy
  3. Employee privacy notice
  4. Form to make a subject access request

I can also offer an audit to assess compliance and the actions required and deliver training for your employees, either face to face or by webinar. Get in touch if you need any of these documents or some training. Call me on 0118 940 3032 or click here to email me.

How to Manage Annual Leave

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Mismanagement of annual leave can have a dramatic impact on your company’s business, as demonstrated by Ryanair’s cancellation of hundreds of flights after it admitted “messing up” the planning of pilots’ holiday in the summer of 2017.

Here are some of the most common problems with managing annual leave, to help you to avoid them:

1. Encourage your employees to take holiday throughout the year

Allowing staff to build up too much leave and not spread out their holidays over the year can be a major problem for you. This could occur if there is an excess of work to do or if the business is struggling because of the economic climate, meaning that employees feel they are not able to take annual leave without putting their jobs at risk.

You should encourage your employees to plan and take annual leave. The responsibility for monitoring it is usually allocated to line managers, who should check their employees’ annual leave balance and remind them that they need to use the holiday up by the end of the leave year.

  • Do encourage your staff to submit dates for their holiday as far in advance as possible.
  • Do review regularly whether or not employees have taken, or at least planned to take, some of their holiday.

2. “Buying out” annual leave entitlement

You may be tempted to offer staff a cash substitute in return for giving up their annual leave entitlement. However, it is a fundamental principle of annual leave law that employers can’t give employees payment in lieu of their minimum statutory annual leave entitlement (i.e. the 5.6 weeks guaranteed under UK law). The exception to this is on termination of employment. When an employee leaves a job part way through the holiday year, they will be entitled to be paid for any accrued statutory holiday not taken by the date they leave.

  • Don’t give in to employees’ requests for pay in lieu of holiday.

3. Carrying over of excessive amounts of holiday

You could consider allowing employees who have not taken their full entitlement to carry over holiday into subsequent leave years. Current EU law prevents you from carrying over the first four weeks of your employees’ statutory annual leave, except when an employee is unable to take the leave because of sickness absence.

Beyond the first four weeks of statutory annual leave, you can allow employees to carry forward periods of holiday. If you do, you should have a rule requiring the excess leave to be used up within the first few months of the next holiday year.

  • Do remind your employees now and then how much annual leave they have outstanding.
  • Do ask any employee who hasn’t taken any holiday or submitted any holiday dates by a certain date – such as the middle of the holiday year – to book some holiday dates as soon as they can.
  • Don’t wait until near the end of the holiday year before reviewing whether or not employees have taken all their holiday.
  • Don’t make staff feel guilty about taking holiday.

4. Allowing too many employees to take leave at the same time

One of the biggest dangers for employers is the effect on the business of allowing too many employees to take time off during particular periods, typically in the summer or at Christmas.

Line managers can sometimes be reluctant to turn down employees’ holiday requests, particularly if an employee has already booked a trip or has a family commitment. However, as their employer you don’t have to agree to a worker’s request to take holiday at a particular time, unless the contract of employment contract says otherwise.

You should have a clear policy on holiday requests, such as ‘first-come, first-served’ approach. Line managers should be brave enough to turn down holiday requests (with the correct notice) when the timing of leave would cause the business difficulties.

  • Do ensure that holiday leave is planned in such a way that the department has adequate cover at all times.
  • Don’t leave the matter of holiday to chance.
  • Don’t take the view that it’s up to each individual to decide whether or not they want to take holiday.

5. Paying your employees the right amount during annual leave

The calculation of holiday pay needs to be done correctly and can no longer be based on just an employee’s basic pay.

Case law has established that pay during annual leave should now include other payments such as overtime pay (both compulsory and voluntary), standby/call-out allowances, shift premia and travel allowances.

You need to decide on a sensible approach to holiday pay calculations, including the length of time used to calculate the average and what allowances should be included.

These are probably the most common issues of annual leave that you will face an employer. Encouraging your employees to take their full allowance of holiday is not only good practice for the business – it is also vital for the health and welfare of your employees. Ensuring that employees take regular time off will help you to build a stronger, more productive workforce in the long run.

If you have any questions about dealing with holiday issues, do get in touch by calling 0118 940 3032 or emailing me here.

Source: XpertHR

It’s Time to Stamp Out Bullying at Work!

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The issue of bullying and harassment at work is a serious matter. The CIPD published a study showing that 13% of employees reported having experienced bullying or harassment at work in the previous 12 months. Yet many managers assume that the problem does not exist, often because no one has complained. A belief or assumption that bullying and harassment do not happen is probably the biggest barrier to tackling the problem.

Many employees may be reluctant to report instances of bullying or harassment out of fear of damaging working relationships with their colleagues, fear of reprisals, embarrassment or worry that they may be perceived as troublemakers. It is important for managers to bear in mind that just because no one has complained does not mean that bullying or harassment is not taking place.

Let’s look at what you can do to deal with bullying and prevent it from happening.

What is Bullying?

Bullying at work is behaviour that is:

  • threatening, aggressive or intimidating;
  • abusive, insulting or offensive;
  • cruel or vindictive; or
  • humiliating, degrading or demeaning.

Bullying will inevitably erode the victim’s confidence and self-esteem. It normally relates to negative behaviours that are repeated and persistent, and deliberately targeted at a particular individual. It is often an abuse of power, position or knowledge, and may be perpetrated by the victim’s manager, peers or even subordinates.

The following table gives some examples of behaviour that could be perceived as bullying.

What about Harassment? 

Harassment is unlawful if it relates to sex, gender reassignment, race (which includes colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins), religion or belief, sexual orientation, disability or age.

The right not to be harassed at work extends to all workers, so agency temps, casual staff and contractors are all protected.

Employees can complain of harassment even if the behaviour in question is not directed at them. This is because the complainant does not actually need to possess the relevant protected characteristic. An employee can complain of unlawful harassment if they have experienced:

  • harassment because they are related to or associated with someone who possesses a relevant protected characteristic; or
  • harassment by a colleague who has the mistaken perception that they possess a relevant protected characteristic.

For example, an employee could complain of harassment where it relates to the fact that they have a homosexual family member or is wrongly perceived to be homosexual. In addition, harassment could occur where a protected characteristic is used as an excuse for the behaviour, even if the perpetrator does not believe that the employee possess the protected characteristic. For example, a line manager may harass a colleague if he teases him about a learning difficulty, even if he does not have a learning difficulty and the line manager knows that he does not.

It is also unlawful to engage in unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature, or to treat a person less favourably because they have rejected or submitted to unwanted conduct of a sexual nature or unwanted conduct related to sex or gender reassignment.

How Can You Stamp Out Bullying and Harassment? 

As an employer you should have and put into effect an anti-bullying/harassment policy. You need to make sure that all your employees know that bullying and harassment at work will not be tolerated and that all instances of such behaviour will be viewed as misconduct, leading to disciplinary action up to and including summary dismissal. 

You should also have a well-publicised complaints procedure, to provide a clear route for employees who believe that they are experiencing bullying or harassment at work to raise the matter without fear of recrimination and have it dealt with.

All your managers and supervisors should receive training in how to prevent and deal with bullying and harassment in the workplace. The training should include an overview of the relevant legislation and what it means and the measures needed to deal fairly and effectively with instances of harassment should they occur. Further, all your staff should, ideally, receive basic harassment awareness training.

You should also make a confidential record of any complaints of bullying or harassment that arise. Once a complaint has been effectively dealt with, you must follow up to ensure that working relationships have returned to normal and that no further harassment is taking place. 

As with most people issues, the best way to deal with bullying and harassment is straight away. Stamp it out immediately so that it does not escalate into a more serious problem and make it clear to your employees that it will not be tolerated.

If you think you’re being bullied at work, or that bullying is happening in your workplace, please do get in touch with me straight away for a confidential conversation. Call me on 0118 940 3032 or click here to email me.

Source: XpertHR