Tag Archives: people

Is Your Business Ready for Ramadan?

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For many Muslims, Ramadan is a period of religious observance, which includes fasting from sunrise to sunset. To help make sure your business is ready, here is a checklist for employers that will help you support any of your employees who observe religious festivals.

  1. Have a policy on religious observance

Your managers should familiarise themselves with your employer’s policy on religious observance during working hours. Making allowances for observance to employees of one religion, but refusing to provide equivalent benefits to employees of a different one, will amount to direct religious discrimination.

Having a policy on religious observance during working hours should have a positive impact on your employees. An absence of such a policy, together with a failure to be supportive towards employees whose religious beliefs require them to observe certain practices, could lead to accusations of religious discrimination.

  1. Show tolerance on reduced productivity levels

It is likely that the productivity of an employee who is fasting will be affected, particularly towards the latter part of the working day. You and your managers should be aware of this and not unduly penalise or criticise an employee whose productivity has suffered because he or she is fasting during a period of religious observance.

  1. Find a way to accommodate annual leave requests

You may experience high demand for holiday requests for a certain period from employees observing religious festivals. The end of Ramadan is marked by the Islamic holiday of Eid, which also signals an end to the fasting period. As an employer, you may, as a result, receive a large number of requests to take holiday towards the end of Ramadan.

It may be impractical for you to grant all of the requests. However, you should be supportive towards employees who observe religions other than Christianity, particularly because the majority of Christian holidays are provided for in the UK as bank holidays.

  1. Consider the effects of training events, conferences and offsite meetings

You may find that some of your employees who are in a period of religious observance are reluctant to attend training events, conferences or offsite meetings.

During Ramadan, Muslims are obliged to abstain from all food and drink between dawn and sunset. This means that you should consider carefully an employee’s request to be excused from attending work conferences, offsite locations, training and similar events during Ramadan because a failure to do so might amount to direct and indirect religious discrimination.

Your managers should arrange to meet with the employee concerned to explore fully his or her reservations about attending an event and determine whether or not a compromise can be reached. For example, the presence of food and drink at the event might be one of the concerns for the employee.

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins on Monday 6 June 2016 and it ends 30 days later on Tuesday 5 July 2016.

If you need help developing a policy for religious observance or holidays for your business, please contact us and we can provide one for you. Call 0118 940 3032 or email sueferguson@optionshr.co.uk.

This information was provided by Xperthr.

What Do You Do if an Employee Appeals Your Decision?

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If you’ve had to make a decision about one of your employees and an issue such as their flexible working request or a disciplinary situation, your employee has the right to appeal against your decision.

What do you do next? How should you handle their appeal?

Your employee can appeal against a disciplinary decision on both conduct and performance matters, or any other employment decision, but they must do so in writing. They need to set out the grounds for their appeal within the number of days set out in your own policy, of you giving them your decision.

You should then hear their appeal without delay. Where possible this should be done by a manager, preferably more senior and not previously involved in the case. This is not always possible in a smaller business, so the same manager or owner may have to hear the appeal, and they must be objective. At this meeting you need to hear what your employee has to say, and consider it against all the facts. You may need to carry out further investigations in order to reach your conclusion, before making your final decision.

Following the meeting, you should write to your employee to tell them the outcome of the appeal, and how the decision was reached. Examples of all the letters for all stages of the formal disciplinary process are available from the Disciplining staff section of the Acas website.

Whatever decision is made regarding the appeal, you must keep a confidential written record of the case.

If you run a small business and need someone impartial to handle appeals, or initial disciplinary meetings for you, do get in touch to talk about how we can do this for you. Call us on 0118 940 3032 or email sueferguson@optionshr.co.uk.

Dealing with Bullying or Harassment at Work

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Recently we looked at the case of one of my clients who had learnt about sexual harassment happening within their company. Click here to see that blog again, or if you missed it. Fortunately that case was successfully resolved, but if ever you need to go to the next stage with such a case, here is how you should deal with it.

Following investigatory meetings, which you must carry out, and assuming that you decide that there is a case to be answered, a formal disciplinary interview should be set up with the person accused of bullying or harassment. This should be done in writing, with your employee being given a full written account of the evidence gathered against them, including the evidence reported by any witnesses. Whether or not it will be appropriate to state the names of any witnesses will depend on the circumstances.

At the same time, the employee should be given notice to attend the interview and informed of their right to be accompanied by a colleague or trade union official. It is essential to provide the accused employee with all the relevant facts at this stage, so that they have a proper opportunity to defend themselves when the interview takes place.

Ask and Listen

At the interview, you should ask open questions, i.e. those beginning with “what”, “which”, “why”, “how”, “where”, “when” and “who”, in order to get the employee’s side of the story. You should listen carefully to what they have to say, and take on board their explanations and any mitigating factors.

The purpose of the interview will be to establish whether or not there are proper grounds for taking disciplinary action against the employee and, if there are, what level of disciplinary action would be appropriate. This will depend on whether or not, following the interview, you have reasonable grounds for forming a genuine belief that incidents of harassment or bullying did in fact occur.

There is no need for you to have absolute proof of the employee’s ‘guilt’ in order to proceed with disciplinary action or dismissal, as long as you have, following a thorough investigation, formed a genuine and reasonable belief that incidents of bullying or harassment took place.

Deal with it Promptly

Depending on the seriousness of the behaviour, disciplinary action may range from a verbal warning to summary dismissal. In cases of mild harassment, for example a single incident that was based on a misunderstanding, or a series of minor incidents where an employee genuinely did not realise that there were causing offence, a sincere apology, together with an undertaking not to repeat the offending behaviour, may be appropriate.

If the outcome is a formal warning or dismissal, the employee should be granted the right of appeal against that decision, to someone who was not involved in either the investigation or the decision to impose the disciplinary sanction. If a warning is given, it should make it very clear that any further incidents of bullying or harassment of any kind will be viewed very seriously and will lead to further formal disciplinary action.

Both the employee who raised the complaint and the employee accused of bullying or harassment should be given written feedback on the outcome and any actions agreed once the proceedings have been concluded. Full confidential records should be kept of all complaints, all interviews conducted and the outcome of the proceedings.

The main aim of any formal action will be to make sure that the harassment or bullying stops immediately and does not recur. This means that you should treat any report of harassment or bullying seriously and deal with it immediately.

I hope that you never have to deal with a situation like this in your business. However, if you are worried about harassment or bullying – either a case that needs to be dealt with, or how to prevent it from happening – please contact me straight away by calling 0118 940 3032 or by clicking here to email me.

How Legal Are Your Employees?

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There’s a lot more to running a business than ‘doing business’. You have to spend time looking after your staff too! And that involves understanding all the legal implications of recruiting, retaining and releasing staff. The law changes on a regular basis, so you really need to know what’s going on, in order to keep on the right side of the law.

Because you’re busy doing what you do, in this blog we’ll bring you a summary of some of the recent legal changes that you need to know about. We discussed them all at our Employment Law Update workshop in May. If you have any questions about particular issues and how they relate to your employees, please do get in touch. We’ll run another workshop in the autumn.

March 2015: Companions – from March this year, changes have been made to the right to be accompanied in disciplinary meetings. Employees now have the right to choose any fellow employee, and employers must agree to this choice. The employee must think about the practicalities of their choice and can change their mind at any time. The request to be accompanied does not have to be in writing, but employees must give their employer time to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting.

April 2015: Parental Leave – before this year, parental leave was 18 weeks before the 5th birthday of the child. This has been extended to 18 weeks before the 18th birthday. The right to parental leave is an employee’s right to be absent from work for the purpose of caring for a child for whom he or she has parental responsibility. Parents can use it to spend more time with their children and achieve a better balance between their work and family life. The time is unpaid and employees must have completed one year’s service with the company to be eligible.

April 2015: Shared Parental Leave – this is a new right enabling mothers, fathers, partners and adopters to choose how to share time off work after their child is born or placed. It applies to children born on or after 5 April 2015 and must be taken by the child’s 1st birthday. The basic rate of pay is £139.58 per week.

This leave does not replace maternity leave, statutory maternity pay or the maternity allowance and is optional to parents. It allows the mother to end her maternity leave early and allow the father to take leave instead. It does not replace the father’s paid ordinary paternity leave.

Adopters and surrogate parents have the same rights as others. A mother can share her leave with the child’s father, her husband, partner or civil partner, a partner living in an enduring family relationship, but not with grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, aunts or uncles, nieces or nephews.

Click here to see a calculator that can help you work out the numbers and for more eligibility.

Holiday Pay Calculations – in a recent case, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that a week’s pay, when calculating holiday pay, must include overtime that employees are required to work, even if the employer is not contractually obliged to offer a minimum number of overtime hours.

The government has introduced the Deduction from Wages (Limitation) Regulations 2014, which limits any potential back claims for holiday pay to two years for claims made from 1 July 2015. Arrears are limited to claims in the last three months.

The following now need to be included in calculating holiday pay: compulsory overtime, semi-voluntary overtime, commission and supplements for on call and anti social hours. It applies to the first four weeks of holiday only.

There are more details here in one of our blogs.

Keep reading our blogs for news on more employment law changes that will be coming in later this year.

Take Seven Steps to Improve Employee Performance – Part Two

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Improving the performance of employees is something that all employers should be thinking about on a regular basis. But what happens when someone isn’t performing as well as they could be? What do you do when one person’s performance starts to affect the rest of the team?

There is a simple seven stage process that we recommend you use in these situations. Recently we wrote about the first three steps to look at – holding informal conversations, offering support and carrying out a performance review meeting. Click here to read about them again, or if you missed them.

Here are the next two steps of the process to follow.

Step 4: Make a Decision

Once you’ve carried out the performance review meeting with your employee, you need to make an informed decision about the action you need to take, in order to improve their performance. Take your time in reviewing the situation and don’t be too hasty to make your decision. Consider all the facts and the situation.

It could be that you need to provide your employee with a clearer job description and expectations for what you want them to achieve. They might need training in order to be able to carry out their job to the standard you expect. In the worst cases, you might need to give them a warning about their performance and explain how you want the situation to improve.

Step 5: Inform Your Employee of Your Decision

Make it completely clear what decision you have made, following the meeting with your employee. Telling them face to face is usually the best way to do this, as it allows further discussion. You should also put your decision in writing, so that there is a record of your decision on file, should any issues arise later.

At this stage, it is also vital that you agree the next steps with your employee. What actions do you want them to take and by when? Explain the goals you want them to achieve, or tell them about the training you need them to undertake. Again, make sure everything is in writing.

There are two more steps that you need to follow, in order to fully tackle performance issues. We’ll cover them in a future blog. If you can’t wait until then and you have employee issues that you need to deal with now, don’t leave them to escalate. Contact us on 0118 940 3032 or email sueferguson@optionshr.co.uk for some help and advice.

What is the Role of Employers in the Tax-free Childcare Scheme?

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As an employer, you are not obliged to play a role in the Tax-free Childcare scheme as the scheme will operate directly between parents and the Government. Parents will be able to set up and pay into their own childcare accounts online, which the Government will then top up at the rate of 20%, up to an annual limit of £2,000 per child (or in the case of a disabled child up to £4,000). However, employers can choose to play a voluntary role by providing employees with information on the scheme and/or by paying into employees’ childcare accounts.

However, employers can act as a source of information on the scheme, for example by referring employees to the Government web portal for advice. A useful time to provide this information may be prior to, and on return from periods of family-related leave. This option may appeal if you do not currently offer employer-supported childcare (i.e. childcare vouchers or directly contracted childcare.)

You can also choose to pay into a childcare account for your employees, if you wish to. This could be done by facilitating payment into the childcare account on behalf of the employee. Under this option employers make the payment into the childcare account directly from the employee’s net pay via the payroll system. Alternatively, you may choose to make additional payments into childcare accounts without an employee’s net pay being reduced. In this case, the additional payment you make will be classed as earnings and subject to appropriate tax and national insurance deductions. Instead of making a series of smaller payments, employers will also have the option of making one bulk payment.

Should you choose to take up a payment role within the scheme, you would not be required to take on any wider responsibilities such as checking an employee’s eligibility for Tax-free Childcare. This would remain the Government’s responsibility.

The Government has said that Tax-free Childcare will be introduced in autumn 2015 and we’ll bring you more news when we have it. Do contact us in the meantime, if you would like to discuss this issue in relation to your business.

Improving Performance Through a Probation Period

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Taking on new members of staff for a growing business can be a costly and time consuming process – especially if you get it wrong. Finding the best person for your business is important, and many people think that they can sit back and rest once their new recruit arrives on their first day. But that’s just the start of it!

This blog looks at how to give your new employee the best start with your business.

You worked hard on crafting the best Job Description for your new team member. The adverts went out and the applications came in. You spent time interviewing potential candidates to join your team. Finally you found them – the perfect person to work with you. They even turned up on their start date. What happens next?

If you think you can just sit back and expect your new recruit to get on with their job and perform as you expect them to – with no input from you – you’ll be disappointed.

The first thing to do – even before a new employee joins you – is to decide on the length of their probation period. This could be between three and six months, depending on the type of work being done. The probation period is your chance to start assessing your new recruit; it’s their time to find their feet and get used to their new role. It is a vital tool in measuring the performance of a new employee.

Next you need to plan when you’re going to review their performance, during the probation period. Planning a review halfway through is a good idea – don’t leave it until the end. This allows you to take action if you’re in any doubt about their ability to do the job for which you have employed them. Their performance will only get better if you do something about it. They might not have understood the job that you need them to do, so this is the time to go over what you expect from them. It’s also a good time for them to air any concerns they might have about their future with you.

You should next plan to review the performance of your new recruit before the end of the probation period. This could be after five months, if the probation is six months in length. This gives you time to properly review their performance and plan any action that needs to be taken – such as training or development. This will put you in the best position to be able to confirm whether or not your new recruit will be staying on.

If you decide that they will not remain with you, and your employment contract is correctly worded, the notice period for a new employee is usually less than for someone who successfully completes a probation period. If they have to leave, you can quickly turn your attention to finding a better person to fill their role.

There is no legal requirement for using a probation period at the start of an employment contract. However, it is a very good way of making sure you get the right person for the job, after all the time and effort you put into the recruitment process. Just make sure that your employment contract explains all this and that you discuss the use of the probation period with anyone to whom you offer the job!

What’s the Best Way to Keep Your Staff Happy?

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Happy employees make happy clients and customers. Here’s a check list of all the things you should be doing, to keep your staff – and therefore your clients and customers – happy. How many are you doing?

  • Improve their engagement with your company – low cost options include offering flexibility, the opportunity to buy or sell holiday and working from home
  • Cheer everyone up – buy them food at work
  • Give lots of praise – in public, if necessary
  • Recognise their achievements – a lot
  • Be reassuring (but realistic) about job security
  • Be flexible about working hours and opportunities to improve their work life balance
  • Be open, honest and involved with your team
  • Keep them in touch with all the news – good or bad
  • Keep up with employees training and development – it does not need to cost a lot. Don’t abandon development and new opportunities. Job training is perceived as a value
  • Develop your company culture – involve everyone in decisions and provide opportunities for staff who don’t normally work together to get to know each other
  • Offer chances to put forward suggestions – it could save you a fortune and it increases the sense of ownership and belonging
  • Provide regular team meetings to reinforce the company culture and beliefs
  • Think about using a promotion as a low cost way of improving self-esteem and self-worth
  • Treat everyone with respect – it doesn’t cost anything and it improves motivation.

How well did you score? What more could you be doing to keep your staff happy?

What’s the Difference Between Informal and Formal Appraisals?

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This is a question I’m often asked by managers, so I thought I would answer it here.

A performance appraisal can occur in two ways – informally or more formally (or systematically.) Informal appraisals can be carried out whenever the supervisor feels it is necessary. The day-to-day working relationship between a manager and an employee offers an opportunity for the employee’s performance to be assessed. This assessment is communicated through conversation on the job, over coffee, or by on-the-spot examination of a particular piece of work. Informal appraisals are especially appropriate when time is an issue. The longer feedback is delayed, the less likely it is to encourage a change in behaviour. Frequent informal feedback to employees can also prevent surprises when the formal evaluation is communicated. However, you should make sure that they don’t become too informal – don’t be tempted to discuss an appraisal in the pub!

Although informal appraisals are useful, they should not take the place of formal appraisals. These are used when the contact between a manager and an employee is more formal. This could be when they don’t see each other on a daily, or even weekly basis. It requires a system to be in place to report managerial impressions and observations on employee performance.

When Should You Carry out Appraisals?

Appraisals typically are conducted once or twice a year, most often annually, near the anniversary of the employee’s start date. For new employees, common timing is to conduct an appraisal 90 days after employment, again at six months and annually after that. ‘Probationary’ or new employees, or those who are new and in a trial period, should be evaluated frequently—perhaps weekly for the first month and monthly thereafter until the end of the introductory period for new employees. After that, annual reviews may be sufficient.

Some managers prefer to meet with their employees more frequently. Some companies in high-technology fields are promising accelerated appraisals— six months instead of a year—so that employees receive more frequent raises. The result for some companies has been a reduction in turnover among these very turnover-prone employees.

A regular time interval is a feature of formal, systematic appraisals that distinguishes them from informal appraisals. Both employees and managers are aware that performance will be reviewed on a regular basis and they can plan for performance discussions. In addition, informal appraisals should be conducted whenever a manager feels they are desirable.

Should We Talk About Pay As Well?

Many experts say that the timing of performance appraisals and pay discussions should be different. The major reason for this view is that employees often focus more on the pay amount than on what they have done well or need to improve. Sometimes managers may manipulate performance appraisal ratings to justify the desired pay treatment for a given individual.

However you carry out appraisals – whether informally or formally – take some time to think about the pros and cons of the different options. This will help you implement the best process for the development of your business and your employees.

Family Matters in Your Business

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Many of the recent Employment Law changes have focused on family matters. There are more to come in 2015, so it’s important that you are prepared and know how they might affect your business. Many changes relate to the families of your members of staff. While you might not think you’re directly involved, you could be and you need to know how to handle each situation.

Here are some examples: 

2015 Childcare Scheme. From this autumn, almost 2 million families will be able to make use of the tax-free childcare scheme announced in the last Budget. Eligible families will be able to claim a 20% rebate on their childcare costs up to £2,000 per child. How could this affect your business? Research shows that nearly a quarter of employed mothers would increase their working hours if they could arrange good quality childcare. This could be a good thing for your business, but not every family is eligible and some could end up worse off. Some might need to reduce their working hours, which might not suit your business.

Flexible Working. In the past, only parents with children under the age of 17 and carers could apply for flexible working. Now employees who are not caring for others have the right to make a request and as the employer, you must deal with these requests in a reasonable manner. This means you can no longer only expect your employees with children to request flexible working. Now you need to be prepared in case any of your employees makes the request. Do you know how you would deal with these matters?

Time Off for Dependants. All employees have the right to time off during working hours, to deal with unforeseen matters and emergencies relating to dependants. This is unpaid leave, unless you’re willing to give paid time off. Employees have a right to a reasonable amount of time off – usually 1-2hours rather than days – to deal with emergencies involving a spouse, partner, child, parent or an elderly neighbour. Leave can be taken to deal with a breakdown in childcare, to put longer term care in place for children or elderly relatives, if a dependant falls ill or is taken into hospital or to arrange or attend a funeral. Do you have a plan in place to deal with employees needing to take time off at short notice?

Shared Parental Leave. In the past, mothers could take 52 weeks of maternity leave and receive 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay. Now they can decide to share the leave with their partner. This means that if you are the employer of the partner, you could still find yourself having to give them parental leave, if the mother decides to go back to work early. To make sure your business is prepared for this, know how many of your key members of staff this could affect. Having a contingency plan for what it could cost you.

Antenatal Rights. Pregnant mothers are entitled to time off for antenatal appointments. In addition, partners of mothers-to-be can now take unpaid time off work to go with her to two of these appointments. While you might not have any expectant members of staff, think about the impact on your business of losing a key member of staff for a day – the partner. Can you still hold a Board Meeting with one of your Directors absent?

There have been a number of recent Employment Law changes affecting family matters. However, there are many other legal requirements that you need to be aware of, relating to your employees and their families. For more information the Acas website is always a good place to start.

Employment Law Update Workshop

On 21 May 2015 we’ll be spending the morning at Hennerton Golf Club in Wargrave, Berkshire, going through the latest changes to Employment Law. For individual help with your business and your employees, book your place on the workshop. We’ll talk about how the changes will specifically impact on your business. Click here to book your place for just £15 +VAT.

One of the attendees at a recent workshop said “I thought the workshop would be full of other HR people who knew more than me – but it wasn’t like that at all. I learnt a great deal from the Employment Law update and it was really useful talking to other people to hear how they dealt with similar issues to me.”