HR musings with added sparkle!
In the ever-changing landscape of employment, small businesses often find themselves navigating a maze of regulations, perceptions, and challenges. With increasing media coverage of “bad” employers and a constant stream of changes in employment law, it’s no wonder that some business owners hesitate when it comes to hiring.
Continue reading “The Complexities of Employment in Business Today”
I know what you’re thinking, “I’m stressed all the time at work!” and we all know that the daily grind can be challenging. Stress at work is something that affects us all. Whether it’s meeting tight deadlines, dealing with challenging collegues, or simply feeling overwhelmed with too much to do, work-related stress can take a toll on our mental and physical well-being.
But the good news is that stress is manageable, and there are simple things we can do to reduce its impact on our lives. I’ve pulled together some top tips to help you manage stress at work and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Continue reading “How often are you stressed at work?”
Things in workplaces around the country are almost back to ‘business as usual’ – but the new normal is not the same as it was before. Now, most office-based companies have reams of staff working remotely who hadn’t been doing so previously, many have a smaller workforce than before (because of redundancies, as well as a whole host of other external factors) and lots have new working practices and procedures that are still settling in.
During the ‘new normal’, it’s important to note that no matter how things ease, we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic; which will undoubtedly have affected your staff’s home lives as well as their work. Having moved and adapted working practices to fit remote working and extenuating circumstances, now too is the time to do so with performance management – but how best can this work on an ongoing basis? Let me explain…
Continue reading “How can we manage performance during a global pandemic?”
The coronavirus pandemic has had many unexpected consequences and whilst there’s no doubt businesses would have liked to be prepared for the eventualities they’d see, most simply weren’t. However, all is not lost: there are lots of ways you can connect with and manage your employees remotely without having to download specialist software, send them home with extra screens or pay for servers to be connected remotely. Follow these top tips for efficient and thorough management of your teams, remotely.
Continue reading “How To Best Manage Remote Working Without Specialist Equipment”
Christmas may seem like a distant memory but as we draw closer to the long Easter weekend, a lot of employees like to take annual leave to extend this further and take time out to unwind. This shouldn’t be a problem but throw some ‘suspicious’ sickness absence into the mix and things can quickly get out of hand.
To help you be fully prepared, I have put together some handy guidance to help take the pain out of bank holiday headaches!
All holiday has to be approved through your established booking system, in line with your company’s holiday policy and minimum cover required. If you don’t have a policy in place, contact me and I’ll help you get one suited to your business requirements. It may be an opportunity for you to once again draw your employees attention to the authorisation process and make sure it is clear. As a responsible employer you also need to encourage your employees to take their holiday on a regular basis, to ensure they are having adequate breaks and leisure time away from the work environment. It is good practice to manage and monitor holidays that have been taken, to avoid a surge of holiday requests at the end of your company’s holiday year.
All sickness needs to be dealt with consistently. The employee has the obligation to notify you within the specified time in line with your absence procedure. The timing of their absence cannot be questioned, and whilst unfortunate you will need to source cover last minute to account for the additional person not working for you during this time. If the sickness absence day happens to be the day before the bank holiday (which they were not scheduled to work) you would record the absence for the one day, and then the bank holiday in the usual way. Meaning that the employee would get paid for the bank holiday as normal. It is illegal to withhold this payment of wages.
The important part of managing any absence is the return to work interview on the morning back to work. This helps you to gather information and discuss the absence in more detail. You should also take the opportunity to examine the employee’s absence record to see if there are any patterns or if their absence is becoming too high. This could then trigger the requirement for a further, potentially more formal conversation with them.
Whilst this doesn’t occur on a frequent basis, it can happen. We have a really useful letter template available for our clients to take control of this situation. If you issue this letter to the employee prior to the ‘time off’ in question, you have made it crystal clear that if they take the time off it will be unauthorised unpaid leave and could lead to disciplinary action taking place.
Natalie Ellis HR 