Archive

Month: May 2023

Business change on the horizon?

If you’re thinking there might be business change on the horizon and the potential for redundancy, you’ll need to identify that you have a genuine redundancy situation.

It sounds simple, but it’s not always intuitive – here are a few things for you to consider:

The same amount of work – even if you have the same amount of work, if you now need fewer people to do that work, it is still likely to be a redundancy situation.

Reduction in work – if you have a reduction of a particular kind of work but the same number of employees needed, asking employees to change what they do perhaps by reducing their role or hours, may amount to a redundancy.

Practical reality – you need to focus on the practical reality of the role and not what was written down in a job description years before (if that’s different from what’s happening on a day-to-day basis).

Adding to a role – it will be a redundancy situation if it means that the particular kind of work that the employee is doing is disappearing or reducing.

If you’re unsure whether your circumstances mean you have a redundancy situation, always take advice. Intelligent Employment is here to help with individual redundancies and we have solutions for collective consultation processes too.

This update is accurate on the date it was published, but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
Posted On: May 26th, 2023By |

Employment contracts and the ‘3Cs’ – pt.4 | Contemporary

Did you know, fewer than 20% of employees actually read their employment contract before signing? That’s staggeringly low for such an important document, and why our last ‘C’, contemporary, is key to boosting engagement. 

Here are my top tips for creating contracts that are engaging, practical…and actually read:

Stop writing in the third person swapping ‘the Company’ for ‘we/us’ immediately creates a connection with your audience and creates a more personal, interesting and engaging read.

Cut out the jargon – if your reader is having to wade through little understood terminology you’re losing their attention, fast! Employment contracts should be user-friendly and easy to understand throughout.

Intuitive layout – create a ‘start, middle and end’ that corresponds with the employment journey to make it easier to navigate and find relevant detail.

Keep it simple – don’t worry about catering for every eventuality. From a legal perspective that can be unhelpful and means the length of the document will in itself switch off the reader.

Contact me here if you’d like to discuss how we can help you create more contemporary contracts. You can also use our free, self-service health check tool to see whether your employment contracts are fighting fit!

This update is accurate on the date it was published, but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
Posted On: May 25th, 2023By |

Employment contracts and the ‘3Cs’ – pt.3 | Commerciality – avoiding unnecessary costs

This is the second part of what ‘commerciality’ means for your employment contracts. You don’t need to include these provisions, but in doing so you’re giving yourself the potential opportunity to avoid unnecessary costs for your business.

Here are my top three ‘quick wins’ to help save some cash within your contracts:

Holidays departing employees often lose their ‘mojo’ during their notice period – it’s human nature. By requiring them to take accrued unused holiday during their notice period, you save on paying them a lump sum in lieu of untaken holiday when they leave.

PILON – payment in lieu of notice clauses are important, but costly. You’re paying a lump sum for someone to avoid working for you! How can you minimise the cost of PILONs? You can stagger payments and require departing employees to start their job search immediately, and then to tell you when they’ve found a new job. If you add in that they must start their new job as soon as an offer is received, you can potentially end notice pay at that point (provided you’ve paid at least the statutory minimum).

Probationary periods – save unnecessary admin and cost by commencing pension contributions once the employee has successfully completed the first three months of employment. You can also limit notice periods during probation – that way, if you feel that the individual doesn’t have the skills for the role, or simply just doesn’t ‘get it’, you can limit notice costs during this period.

Contact me here if you’d like to discuss how we can help you to ensure your contracts are avoiding unnecessary costs for your business. You can also use our free, self-service health check tool to see whether your employment contracts are fighting fit!

This update is accurate on the date it was published, but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
Posted On: May 25th, 2023By |

Employment contracts and the ‘3Cs’ – pt.2 | Protecting business interests

What do we mean when talking about ‘commerciality’ in employment contracts? Well, it’s all the stuff that you don’t need to include but can choose to add in order to protect your business interests and what matters most to you. 

There’s loads I could go into but my top tips would be:

Reflect reality – what’s important to your business will change over time. If you don’t think about updating your employment contracts as your business evolves, their value and effectiveness will dilute over time.

Protecting know-how – think about what makes your business unique. Your proposals, pitches, products, pricing…I could go on! They’re all capable of being protected, but you need to call them out in your contracts! Otherwise, they’re often fair game to departing employees.

Post-termination restrictions – “they’re not enforceable!”…if I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that! They’re definitely easy to get wrong, but are enforceable when drafted appropriately. Restrictions that aren’t specific or drafted tightly enough are highly unlikely to be upheld. You need to make sure the terms of the restrictions don’t go further than necessary to protect your legitimate business interests – stating an employee can’t ever work for a key competitor isn’t going to work unfortunately!

Contact me here if you’d like to discuss how we can help you to ensure you’re protecting what matters most to your business. You can also use our free, self-service health check tool to see whether your employment contracts are fighting fit!

This update is accurate on the date it was published, but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
Posted On: May 24th, 2023By |

Further Brexit announcements

Following the announcement last week that all EU-derived law will remain unless specifically repealed, the government has announced their intention to make changes to the Working Time Regulations and TUPE provisions following Brexit.

Rena Christou, Halborns’ Managing Director, shares her thoughts:

Working Time Regulations

Rolled up holiday pay to be allowed – there are plans to allow holiday pay to be included within hourly pay (particularly relevant for zero-hours or agency workers). This could mark a significant and welcome change for employers.

Merging holiday entitlements – employees’ holiday entitlement is currently split into two parts (4 weeks based on EU law and 1.6 weeks based on UK law). The proposal is to merge the two. My view is this should simplify the admin of managing the two different entitlements, but at the moment we’re unclear how this will be achieved and how it will affect holiday pay calculations.

Recording working time not required – whilst this sounds appealing there will still be the need to maintain “adequate records” for the purposes of National Minimum Wage and holiday pay. How this will change things in practice is unclear.

Changes to TUPE consultation

The plan is to remove the requirement to consult with appointed representatives for businesses with fewer than 50 employees and transfers affecting fewer than 10 employees. My view is this is a welcome change to ensure more appropriately facilitated communication for smaller TUPE transfers.

The announcements lack finer detail – we’ll update you as and when we know more. Contact me here if you’d like to chat about what these changes might mean for your business. 

This update is accurate on the date it was published, but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
Posted On: May 16th, 2023By |