Since the pandemic hit the UK earlier this year many employees have worked from home and it seems some employers have found issues with home working. Here is a guide to home working and how we can make these issues easier. It now seems it will be a long time before everything returns to normal. Therefore, employees may be required to work from home more often. Even if your employees have worked from home before, they might not have spent such a long time away from their colleagues. In one sense, we’re all in it together, but in another sense, it’s a different experience for everyone. Having additional responsibilities, such as childcare, or losing out on chances to socialise might be starting to affect your employees. What are the Advantages? Besides preventing employees from catching the coronavirus and passing it on to others by social distancing, home working creates a more flexible schedule, the ability to work from any location, and no more commuting were the top reported benefits The cost savings associated with remote work may win over many companies. As well, switching to virtual meets in some instances can also be a significant cost savings. Employers and employees […]
127,000 of UK 2020 weddings have been cancelled or postponed to 2021 because of the current pandemic. The highest rates of wedding cancellations were seen in the south of England, with 43% of weddings cancelled in the Greater London area, followed by South West England (42%), the East of England (39%) and South East England (37%). If your business lost 43% of its turnover, but you still had to cover your business overheads, including employee’s wages would your business be struggling? The majority of Bridal Retailers would be. The Problem Stephanie has over 25 years’ experience in the UK bridal industry. She owns two bridal shops in the East Midlands. In her words “I’ve never known anything like this. It’s Armageddon!”. Stephanie was at her wits end when she phoned Metis HR. Six months of restrictions on who can attend weddings, travel restrictions cancelling weddings being held abroad and the enforced closure of bridal shops as non-essential retail cancellations, were giving her sleepless nights. Few businesses carry the sort of reserves needed to sail through the impact of COVID without any concerns. Stephanie had 6 employees in her two shops. One shop was doing a little better than the other, […]
Discrimination at work is unlawful, yet unfortunately, it still happens. Everyone has the right to be treated fairly at work and HR plays an important role in ensuring that. Often this is done by making sure fair practices are embedded into the business and upholding them. Occasionally, HR must step in to investigate wrongdoing or support disciplinary proceedings. In this blog, we will examine the ways outsourced HR can help you prevent discrimination at work. Types Of Discrimination At Work Broadly speaking there are four types of discrimination at work; Direct Discrimination, Indirect Discrimination, Harassment, and Victimisation. Direct Discrimination is treating someone differently because of a protected characteristic. This might be overlooking someone for a promotion because they are too old, for example. The protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Indirect Discrimination is when a rule, policy, or practice applied to everyone puts one group at a disadvantage or treats them unfairly. For example, insisting all staff work a Sunday could indirectly discriminate against practising Christians for whom Sunday is a religious day. Harassment is unwanted behaviour towards a person to humiliate or intimidate […]
What is a disciplinary hearing? It’s an opportunity for the details of the disciplinary investigation to be considered a person not previously involved to review evidence gathered the person facing allegations to present mitigation or new evidence When should a Disciplinary Hearing be convened? After a Disciplinary Investigation is completed. The Investigating Officer should have concluded that the evidence gathered suggests that there is the potential for the allegation(s) to be proven. They recommend that the matter be considered in a formal Disciplinary Hearing. Your Disciplinary Policy probably outlines the process in your organisation for convening a Hearing. But typically, the employee is invited to attend the Disciplinary Hearing by letter or email given the right to be accompanied at the Hearing by a work colleague or trade union representative given a copy of the Disciplinary Policy sent an evidence bundle. Only evidence that the employee has been able to review should be considered at the Hearing Who attends a Disciplinary Hearing? Check your Disciplinary Policy. Different organisations have different standards. Our recommendation is that there should be a Hearing Chair. the Investigating Officer who presents their investigation to the Hearing. They will also answer any questions put to them. […]
What does the Job Support Scheme really mean for employers? Having read the detail of Chancellor’s announcement yesterday we’ve put together the main points for your information. The Job Support Scheme is potentially not as helpful to employers as it first sounded. The main pointers of the scheme are The government have said that further guidance “will be published shortly”· The Scheme opens on 1 November 2020 and closes in April 2021 (no specific date given)· You can use this Scheme even if you as the employer or the employee concerned have not previously used the furlough scheme (Job Retention Scheme)· The Scheme is only open to those businesses where turnover is lower now than before experiencing difficulties from COVID19· Employees must have been on your payroll on or before 23 September 2020 (so a Real Time Information (RTI) submission must have been made before 23 September 2020.· Employees will be paid for 77% of their contracted hours· The Government will pay a third of the hours not worked by an employee up to a cap of £697.92 per month· […]
We were asked today how to manage employees as they return to work from Lockdown. As this might apply to a lot of employers, we thought we’d make it the subject of a blog. You’ll already have done the things that the Government’s advising you to do to create a COVID safe workplace. You’ll have completed your COVID 19 risk assessments, you’ll have put up the signs reminding people to wash their hand and you’ve likely bought hand sanitiser. But there are some practical things to think about how people behave at work. Our ten tips to manage employees as they return to work from Lockdown Touching colleagues. It should go without saying but some returning workers will need reminding what your policy on touching. What’s your policy on whether your employees should shake hands with visitors. The more informal supportive slap on the shoulder or the high fives when someone signs a big deal are no longer welcome. Facemasks at work. At the time of writing it’s not always necessary to wear a mask all day. But it will depend on your workplace and your risk assessment. But each worker should at least have a mask on their person […]
Dr Tok Hussain (Consultant Occupational Physician) from Healthwork Ltd writes a guest blog for us this week discussing the benefits of Occupational Health to employers. Occupational health (OH) is a service that many employers value in looking after their employees as well as managing health related and corporate risk. Occupational health is a specialist branch of medicine concerned with the effects of work on health and health on work. So, for example, an occupational health nurse or doctor might be carrying out hearing tests to ensure workers don’t develop deafness as a result of their work. The nurse or doctor might also be seeing someone who has had a heart attack or is suffering with anxiety and then advising about how that worker can safely return to work. Occupational health focuses on providing the best possible advice in relation to health and work. Occupational Health focuses on: maximising people’s opportunities to benefit from healthy and rewarding work while not putting themselves or others at risk of harm; the elimination of preventable illness caused or aggravated by work; advising about workplace health matters; helping to rehabilitate those who have suffered injury or sickness back into work; helping support those who because […]
Working out how to cope with COVID at work this winter isn’t easy because the data is conflicting. Are we going to have more deaths? More illness but fewer deaths? More flu and less COVID or more COVID and less flu? With more local lockdowns happening and more schools shutting temporarily one thing’s for sure, no one knows what is going to happen. If you’re planning how to cope with COVID at work this winter, we have some tips that might help. If you have 25% absenteeism, can you still operate? What about 50%? If nothing else, the last six months have shown us some new ways of dealing with a lack of people in the workplace. Some of these plans will still work as we approach winter, some won’t. Have you done as much as you can to cross-train people to carry out multiple roles? Test this cross training by rotating people now, rather than waiting for a crisis. Because you’ll find wrinkles in the process that need sorting out and this way you’ve got time. Are your IT systems up to the job? Can people easily access the information they need to do their job and the work […]
Workplace stress has a significant impact on employee wellbeing and, consequently, on productivity. Employee wellbeing is an HR issue, because, without it, long-term issues can develop in the workplace, which ultimately undermines a business or organisation. A key function of human resources is to provide a resilient people-management framework for the workplace. Increasingly, there is a recognition that employee wellbeing should be part of this framework. What Makes Wellbeing Important? Burnout is bad news for productivity. Work-life imbalances, increased workloads, staff shortages and unexpected changes can all contribute to stress that culminates in burnout. Furthermore, even in times of rising unemployment, businesses must compete for the exceptional talent they need, and must also ensure they retain this talent once they have got it. Therefore, as employers face the implications of a recession, and the difficulties of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, they must look to how they can maintain a healthy, happy workforce. There are many factors that can affect employee wellbeing, and some of these may be personal factors that are out of the employer’s control But there are plenty of factors that are within the employer’s control, mostly centred around job roles, job satisfaction and how people conduct their […]
Today marks World Suicide Awareness Day and there is a desperate need for more mental health and suicide awareness in the workplace. Every year between 5,500 and 6,000 people in Britain end their own lives. This is more than three times the number of people who die on our roads. Suicide is the leading cause of deaths in men under the age of 50 and men are 3 times more likely to commit suicide than women. Women in their early twenties are more likely to try and end their lives than other female age groups. And anyone who falls into a protected characteristic group (such as race, religion, sexual orientation etc) are also more susceptible to suicide due to possible previous experiences of bullying and harassment because of discrimination. Fortunately, this is something that most employers will never encounter. However, the potential risk of suicide is an important one and can often be linked to issues such as workplace stress, bullying or harassment. Suicide and work is a growing public health concern. There are a number of things that employers can do to try to prevent any employee feeling that they need to end their own lives. There are plenty […]
