We’ve already had two calls this week asking us “Can I make my employees have a COVID vaccine?” The short answer to this is “No”. It’s also unlikely to be fair to discipline or dismiss an employee because they don’t want to be vaccinated. It would be highly unusual for any employer to force an employee to undergo a medical procedure (which is what being vaccinated amounts to). Consider also, that some employees may be unable to have the vaccine. Employers do have a duty of care to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees and anyone visiting or affected by their business. If your risk assessment establishes that being vaccinated reduces the risk of contracting the virus, it’s reasonable to ask employees to get vaccinated. But, you can’t make employees have a COVID vaccine. Do your employees need to tell you that they’ve had a vaccination? No, they don’t. Health data is sensitive personal information. If you record that employees have been vaccinated, make sure that you collect the minimum information. Maybe restricting this to simply, have they had the vaccine, yes or no. Considering adding COVID vaccination as a contractual clause? Take care. Enforcing this change, […]
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, […]
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· […]
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 […]
Seriously considering the question how to conduct an exit interview improves the usefulness of the process. They help your business out with real feedback from a departing employee to reduce future employee retention. Exit interviews bring to light the specifics about why an employee is leaving. They help identify organisational issues which are contributing to the turnover rate. By using this information, leaders can make real changes to reduce the drain of talent from the organisation. What’s the benefit of having low employee turnover? Organisations with low turnover rates spend less on recruitment costs and see increased productivity. All this embeds the organisation’s culture because those employees staying already know the core mission and the organisational norms. How should an exit interview be conducted? When you’re inviting the employee to the exit interview, tell them what you want to gain from the conversation. Include in the invitation your expectations around confidentiality. Scheduling interviews with the employee giving them ample time to prepare for the conversation is an important part of how to conduct an exit interview. Arrange the meeting close to their last working day. If you’re serious about how to conduct an exit interview meaningfully, give the employee a […]
Alison Driver shares her opinion about what are the roles and responsibilities of an HR Consultant. What are the roles and responsibilities of an HR Consultant? The role of an HR Consultant is one of trusted advisor. An experienced professional who is able to talk with employers about their people related problems. HR consultants are professionals hired from outside a business or organisation tasked with solving or meeting a human resources-related need. Often they are hired to provide high-level solutions and recommendations to employers. Specialist or Generalist HR? HR is a broad professional discipline. There are HR Consultants who are specialists and HR Consultants who are generalists. Specialists are experts in specific areas of work. Generalists are broadly experienced in a number of aspects of HR. An HR consultant asks enough questions of a potential client to know that they have the right experience for that client. An HR Consultant is responsible for not taking assignments where the skill set lies outside their own. Advice An HR consultant delivers high quality support and advice to their clients. They must be able to think across the breadth of the organisation and consider the direction that the organisation is going. Advice from […]
As enterprises grow, so do their responsibilities, which is where outsourced HR plays a pivotal role. Management of human resources is a complex function, but an essential one, and one which offers vital protection to employers. Why do employers need protection, and how does outsourced HR provide it? Here, we highlight the main advantages, and how employers can reduce their risk using expert HR support. Who is Outsourced HR For? More than simply a business function, HR supports businesses and organisations in fulfilling and complying with their responsibilities. As an employer, you will have certain responsibilities, and these will multiply as your enterprise grows. The burden of administration can become a major issue and, without the necessary resources, something that both distracts and detracts from core business issues. Human resources management is, therefore, a structural necessity, but it can be a costly one. Looking at it from another angle, most people in business, however experienced and insightful, cannot be experts in everything. Success and growth depend, to a large extent, on understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, and knowing when to bring in expertise to cover areas that are not your natural strong point. If you do not cover these […]
If you are thinking about working with an HR Consultant here are eight questions to ask an HR Consultant before hiring them. As with any investment, it pays dividends to do some research and ask the right questions. Here are our eight questions to ask an HR Consultant before hiring them to work with you and your business. 1. How much experience do you have? How long have you been working as an HR Consultant? What was your professional experience before becoming a consultant? Try to find someone with in-depth experience managing people and of running a business. Someone who can relate to the pressures that you, as a business-owner, are facing. 2. Who are some of your other clients? What kind of work have you done for clients like me? Can I call them to ask about your work? Some HR Consultants may be reluctant to disclose the names of their clients. But at the very least you need to know that the HR consultant has worked with companies closer to your size and industry. If they have they’re more likely to understand your needs. If the HR Consultant is reluctant to put you in touch with a client so that […]
One of the questions that we feel we must always keep at the front of our minds is “How does an HR Consultant add value to your business?”. One of the questions that we feel we must always keep at the front of our minds is “How does an HR Consultant add value to your business?”. We understand that you’re quite rightly focused on the results we produce for you and how we help you with the challenges you have in your business. As HR Consultants we put our all into the projects we do for you. We understand that you won’t automatically appreciate the technicality of the work that we’ve done or propose to do but we’ll work hard to explain ourselves. How do Metis HR Consultants add value to your business? 1: Understand your world We spend time understanding what you’re trying to achieve and why you’re trying to achieve it. We need to understand what your challenges are. We’re like doctors, until we know all of the symptoms and have done tests, we can’t make an accurate diagnosis. To do this we have to go a layer deeper than most people usually go. To do this we […]
