Staff Management

To give clients a greater insight into what we do, we regularly feature interviews with members of the HR:4UK team. This month we catch up with Sales and Marketing Co‐ordinator Amanda Matthews who will be celebrating 10 years with the firm next year. Sales and Marketing Co‐ordinator Amanda Matthews loves the variety her job brings – and that includes leaving the office occasionally and spending time with the people we look after. Amanda’s time is taken up with marketing and…

With Easter just around the corner, now is the ideal time to look at religion and belief in the workplace – and explore exactly what employers can do to prevent discrimination. Diversity in all its various guises enriches a workforce, but to promote inclusivity, avoid misunderstandings, and stay within the law, it’s advisable to have a policy dealing specifically with religious matters at work. If you’re not clear on the legislation and where your obligations lie, you run the risk…

Members of staff are never too old to be discriminated against, as the recent case of an 88‐year‐old former medical secretary clearly shows. A Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust employee has become the oldest person in Britain to win an age discrimination case after a Tribunal found she had been treated less favourably than a younger person. The employee, Mrs Jolly – who has a heart condition and arthritis – also successfully won a disability discrimination claim against her employer.…

Forget online dating apps. The chances are that one in four couples sharing a romantic candle‐lit dinner this St Valentine’s Day will have met at work. According to recruitment surveys, more than half of us have dated a colleague at some point, with many a romance in the workplace leading to long‐term commitment – including marriage and civil partnerships. There is no law against having an office relationship. Everyone is entitled to a private life as part of their human…

It is not uncommon for employees to struggle with productivity in the winter months for a number of reasons.   One of the key reasons why productivity is affected by office temperatures is simply because when we are cold, we are not just uncomfortable, we are distracted.   When our body temperature drops, we automatically expend more energy to keep warm, which leaves less energy and brainpower for the tasks at hand. When we are cold, we tend to be more grumpy and…

Thousands of passengers stranded, mass pilot desertions, a huge public outcry and headlines across all media channels – because of what? It is hard to believe that this was all down to a monumental failure by Ryanair to monitor and manage holiday requests submitted by their flight crews.   This demonstrates how failing to manage your staff leave can, as in the case of Ryanair, totally disrupt your ability to manage and run your business. Monitoring leave and having appropriate policies…

Social media is now a part of everyday life, both for businesses and individuals.  It is estimated that on average people have five social media accounts and spend one and a half hours per day browsing their accounts. The impact of staff being distracted by constantly viewing and updating their social mobile accounts or surfing the web, is now becoming a real issue in the workplace with over 30% of employees recently surveyed admitted that they were distracted by accessing…

You may think that the reply is obvious, but you may be surprised that sometimes you are.  If an employee causes damage or is injured during the course of their employment, then the employer is jointly liable to pay for any claims arising.  The employee must be acting in the course of their employment and not to have “metaphorically taken off his uniform” An example of this would be the plumber who floods a house while at work or doing…

Many employers are not aware that they can be responsible for the actions of their employees conduct at work. The legal term is vicarious liability and refers to a situation where someone is held responsible for the actions or omissions of another person. If this act is one of discrimination, then the employer could find themselves facing an award by an employment tribunal but how much? Tribunals can make awards if there has been a constructive dismissal or unfair dismissal if an…

A recent tribunal case provides a stark lesson for all employers who fail to have appropriate HR Policies and Procedures in place, particularly when dealing with an employee dispute. The case involved a butcher who was dismissed by his employer for posting another butcher’s ‘meat deal’ on social media, to his then girlfriend. The employee, Michael Hayward, had worked for Noel Chadwick, butchers based in Wigan for seven and half years. The Tribunal were highly critical of the employer, as…

In a recent Court of Appeal case some useful guidelines on how to deal with long term absences has been given. The facts of the case were, that the employee, Ms O’Brien was employed as head of a department at a school and she was attacked by a pupil. Her injuries were not serious and she returned to work after a short period. When she returned she felt unsafe in the school and was unhappy with the way the school…

If you run a business you will frequently be faced with the problem of your employees ringing in to say that they will be late in; not arriving at all; or asking to leave work early due to an emergency. What should you do in these circumstances and when can you legitimately refuse such request? The first thing that you need to be aware of is that an employee has a statutory right to take time off to look after…

It seems that never a month goes by without an announcement for a National Awareness day for this or that. February is no exception with the first Monday in February being labelled as National Sickie day, as it has traditionally been the highest day for employee absenteeism. This was no doubt compounded by other events such as perhaps a hangover after Dry January, celebrating the Six Nations kick off or the Super Bowl or simply over indulgence of the first…

The Tax Paid Gift Card scheme marketed last month proved once again to be a runaway success for our clients, who found it to be a fantastic way to reward their staff, with all the inconvenience and burden of dealing with the Inland Revenue, handled on their behalf by HR:4UK. However it should not just be at Christmas time that you recognise and reward staff, as our Tax Paid Gift Cards are available throughout the year for you to motivate…

Much has been written over the past few days about the impact of Brexit on all aspects of business management – including HR. We thought it would be helpful to give business owners and managers some objective and measured advice. So, what does Brexit mean for your HR management? The short answer is – nothing. As you will know from news coverage of the Brexit process, it will take at least two years (and possibly much longer) for the UK…