When thinking about how to retain employees, it’s easy to see improved pay and conditions as the answer. However, this approach often has a limited shelf life, as employees quickly get used to receiving a new salary or benefit. It’s also not always affordable for...
HR Strategy and Culture
TUPE – understanding the basics
Are you buying or selling a business? Then you’ll need to think about what will happen to the employees of the company being transferred. The first step is to get to know the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (as amended by the 2014...
How to reduce employee churn as the jobs market takes off again
Are you feeling the pressures of the record high number of job vacancies, standing at 1,102,000 in the UK in the last 3 months? As we emerge from the uncertainties of the pandemic, and people grow in confidence to enter the job market, competition for skilled staff...
Mind the gap! Closing the gender pay gap in small businesses
The gender pay gap has been in the news again, with businesses getting a six-month reprieve if they miss the 4th of April 2021 gender reporting deadline. What the law says for big businesses Employment law legislation requires that employers with 250 or more staff...
5 Best practices for managing remote interns so they’re happy
Managing remote interns can be tricky. You want to give them the right amount of guidance and trust, but how can you mentor someone thousands of miles away? Setting your remote intern up for success with these best practices is crucial. Who would’ve thought that...
Time to Talk Day 2021
Today (4th of February 2021) is Time to Talk Day, one of the biggest days on the mental health calendar, and a chance for all of us to be more open about mental health – to talk, listen and change lives. Coronavirus has made this day especially significant this year –...
Hosting a work Christmas party during COVID-19
With December fast approaching you may be wondering how to host the perfect work Christmas party under the Coronavirus current restrictions or whether just to cancel altogether. Cancelling might seem to be the easiest option with the least risk but hosting a Christmas...
Simple steps to improve workplace culture
This week (24th February 2020) is workplace culture week! A whole week designed to help you focus on the culture within your business or perhaps just another marketing ploy to get us all talking about workplace benefits. Either way, taking some time to think about the...
TUPE: How to get the transfer process right
If you’re involved in a TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) transfer process, either as the outgoing employer (the “transferor”) or incoming employer (the “transferee”), there are several crucial steps you need to follow to make sure you get...
Managing a redundancy process for one employee
Sometimes, particularly in small businesses, a situation arises where only one employee needs to be made redundant. Without a pool of candidates to choose from, how do you prove that you’ve followed a fair redundancy process? Firstly, it’s important to remember that...
Managing voluntary redundancy in a small business
The need to make redundancies is often an upsetting and difficult time for any business. Offering voluntary redundancy can be one way to ease the situation and preserve employee relations. But what’s the process for voluntary redundancy? What steps must you take to...
Redundancy: what employers need to know
Going through a redundancy process can be stressful, and doing so without following the law could lead to expensive penalties. Thorough consultation with all those at risk, and continuing to look for alternative options to redundancy throughout, are essential steps to...
7 ways to boost your staff retention
Regularly losing staff is not only costly but also demoralising (for you, but also for the remaining team members). The worst-case scenario is that one leaver will trigger others to leave as well, and, as you can imagine, this doesn't feel good when you look at your...
Understanding GDPR – a summary
GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation in its full name, is the regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy. This applies to how we look after our employee data, how long we can store it for, and so many other areas of data protection law. It can be a...
Are unpaid internships legal? And what exactly is an intern?
Internships in the news You've probably heard all the noise about internships lately; to recap, last week the government announced new guidelines for employers who hire interns, with certain sectors, in particular, coming under fire. It's estimated that there are 2000...
Build a more positive work culture in 7 steps
Building a business that's known for being a happy and positive place to work will attract skilled workers. Having a flexible culture will attract people from more diverse backgrounds, this can only benefit the company by widening the perspectives of the team. We all...
Have you heard that data protection laws are changing?
This is a big deal. Don’t switch off just because we’ve mentioned Data Protection. This is possibly one of the biggest changes to affect every business in the UK. It will also affect all sorts of aspects of your business. The most obvious area is your marketing and...
Help With HR Consultancy
What to expect from a qualified HR consultancy and how to choose the right one for your small business. Your business is growing and you feel great about it, but with every new staff member you find your desk drowning in more paperwork and your inbox clogging up with...
Preparing for exit?
Many new businesses are today started by entrepreneurs whose main aim is to exit the business successfully in a few years’ time. Sound familiar? All too often the daily focus is running the business and making it profitable, and the thing that is left on the back...
5 ways to set up your workforce up for the year ahead
During the festive season people tend to focus their energy on presents, cards, and parties. When merrymaking is in order, work can sometimes be put on the back burner. But if you set up your workforce now, you can enter the new year with a clean sheet, and nicely...
International Women’s Day – What progress in employment has been made in recent years?
International Women’s Day will soon be upon us, this Sunday in fact, but what progress have we seen in recent years for women in employment? The headline statistics There has been a lot made about the progress made for women in employment – the UK climbing four...
Can you expect your employees to work anywhere?
Can you expect your employees to work anywhere? Even if you are moving offices? Well it doesn't seem that unreasonable at first thought, but maybe you could be asking too much of your employees. And yes, this is definitely different to asking them to work while they...
Starting A Bakery? – Top Tips For New Employers
Starting a bakery? It's fair to say a lot of the British public have at least, at some point, considered if after watching the Great British Bake Off. But when starting a bakery business it may come to a point where you can’t do it all yourself, and when this happens...
Staffing costs increase again
Last month we heard the announcement of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) in the UK being increased from 1st October 2014 following recommendations made by the Low Pay Commission. The increases are bigger than usual so we would strongly advise checking your staff’s rates of pay to check what impact this will have on your ‘bottom line’.