Relationships
How you manage and supervise your employees, communicate and consult with employees, and motivate your employees can result in either a high performing and loyal and committed workforce or a dissatisfied and poor performing group of employees that will have a negative effect on your organisations ability to meet business objectives and satisfy customer expectations.
Contract Development
Many of the issues that arise could be avoided by careful wording of employment contracts. Once issued Employment contract documents become legally binding.
Employment contracts can be complex and will not necessarily be contained in any one document. Employment contracts start to be formed from when a job advert is published and continue being developed throughout the recruitment and selection process.
Equality and Diversity
All organisations must have in place policies and procedures that prevent discrimination, harassment and victimisation on the grounds of the protected characteristics contained in the Equality Act 2010.
Claims of discrimination, harassment or victimisation against organisations or individuals can be costly in financial terms but also in terms of management time to deal with the situation. In certain circumstances there can be a criminal prosecution.
Dealing with Disciplinary Issues
It is rare to find an employer not having to deal with a conduct or performance issue in relation to employees at some point and dealing with these issues will take a lot of management time. It is essential that managers deal with these situations properly and fairly and in accordance with the organisation’s own processes. Failure to do this in the right way can result in:
- Wrongful dismissal claims (even for those under 2 years service)
- Unfair dismissal claims from those dismissed
- Constructive dismissal claims from those who felt they were forced to resign
- Discrimination claims – where individuals feel that action has been taken on the basis of their protected characteristic or due to harassment or bullying
Dealing with Grievances
Despite an employer’s best efforts to have good employee relationships and a satisfied workforce, disputes and complaints will arise. It is essential that managers deal with grievances and complaints properly and fairly and in accordance with the organisation’s own processes. Failure to do this in the right way can result in:
- Constructive dismissal claims where an employee felt their grievances had not been dealt with properly
- Breach of contract claims on the basis of a breakdown of trust and confidence
- Discrimination claims where the employee felt their grievance or complaint was not handled appropriately because of a protected characteristic
- Adverse publicity where grievances are aired in the media
Dealing with Capability Issues
There will be situations where employees will have a capability or performance issue that is not misconduct but arises from an inability to perform at the right standard or level due to a lack of capability or arising from a disability or health problem.
These situations need to be handled carefully and with sensitivity with an emphasis on helping the employee to be retained in the workforce.
The use of a capability procedure will enable the situation to be dealt with fairly and consider whether aids and adaptations, adjustments to work tasks and/or work environment or retraining will improve the capability of the employee to make a meaningful contribution to the business in the future.
Redundancy Management
The law regarding redundancy is complex and each situation may need a different approach to be legally compliant depending on the location, number and type of employees affected. Strict timelines have to be followed and failure to adhere to the legal requirements can result in an injunction to halt redundancy proceedings.
More pro-active employees also offer Outplacement Services for employees at risk or dismissed on redundancy grounds, assisting them in finding alternative employment or even helping them to set up their own business.
Mediation
When dealing with interpersonal conflict in the workplace or disputes between managers and staff, or even complaints or disputes between your company and customers or others you may find the use of a mediation service to be beneficial.
- An independent third party attempts to find common ground and to negotiate a settlement between all the parties
- Saves on the cost and time associated with formal internal procedures
- Reduces the possibility of employment tribunal or county court claims