Human Resources

Your human resources are the most important resources you have. It is therefore vital that you treat them with the most care.

The law is always changing. Coupled with this, culture and the way people behave make employment a complex field. Because of this large corporations have HR teams. In contrast in smaller businesses the staff often take second place to all the other pressures.

Some questions

If you employ staff here are a few questions that you should ask:

• Do you have written procedures such as Discipline and Grievance?
• You should also have written statements of the main terms and conditions of employment. These should include pensions, collective agreements, and how to appeal against disciplinary action;
• Do you have an Equal Opportunities Policy?
• Your managers need to know what bullying and harassment is therefore and how to handle it;
• Do all your staff have good attendance records?
• Do all your staff really know how well or badly you view their work performance?
• Are you always able to recruit the right people as you need them?
• Are you proud of the people you employ?

What to do

If the answer to any of these questions is NO, you are, at worst, not legally compliant or at best, not getting the best from your staff.

• An audit of your employment documents and procedures to ensure they are up to date can be very useful;
• It may also be appropriate to have an equal opportunities audit to make sure you are both legal and following the best practices;
• Your line managers may also need training to handle attendance, discipline, grievance, and discrimination;
• A training review will ensure all your employees have the skills and knowledge they need;
• Do you need to reduce the number of people you employ, but don’t know how to do this?
• Investors in People can be an excellent standard to aspire to.

If the answer to any of these is YES then you should seek the help of a professional Human Resources Service.

For young businesses this could be a package of documentation and procedures. In contrast larger companies may need special projects on aspects of employment.

Professional HR advice

A professional HR service can offer help with:

• Provision of integrated employment contracts, policies and procedures;
• Advice on effective recruitment;
• Training reviews and training needs analysis;
• Provision of appraisal and development systems;
• Advice on day-to-day employment issues involving both staff and trades unions;
• Redundancy administration;
• Development and administration of payment systems;
• Training of management and staff in employment related topics;
• putting in computer based systems. These might be for employment records and administration or time and attendance.

If you would like to discuss any aspects of your HR or would like to find an expert to work with you, please call or email and we can help.