Are you a small business owner in the UK? Do you have employees working for you? If so, then you need to be aware of employment law and how it applies to small businesses.

In the UK, employment law is governed by a number of different pieces of legislation, including the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Equality Act 2010, and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

As a small business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that you are compliant with all aspects of employment law. Failure to do so could result in costly penalties or even prosecution.

In this article, we will take a look at some of the key areas of employment law that apply to small businesses in the UK.

1. Minimum wage

The national minimum wage is the minimum hourly rate that most workers in the UK are entitled to be paid.

As a small business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that all employees are paid at least the national minimum wage. If you are found to be paying workers less than the minimum wage, you could face a fine of up to £20,000.

2. Employee contracts

All employees in the UK are entitled to a written contract of employment from their employer. This contract must set out the main terms and conditions of employment, including things like hours of work, pay, holidays, and sick pay.

As a small business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that all employees have a written contract of employment. Failure to do so could result in an employment tribunal claim.

3. Health and safety

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sets out the statutory framework for health and safety in the workplace. The Act requires employers to take reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety of their employees.

As a small business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that your workplace is safe and compliant with the relevant health and safety legislation. Failure to do so could result in a fine or even imprisonment.

4. Equality and diversity

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of protected characteristics, such as age, gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

As a small business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that all employees are treated equally and fairly. Discrimination of any kind is unlawful and could result in an employment tribunal claim.

5. Data protection

The Data Protection Act 1998 sets out the legal framework for the protection of personal data. The Act requires employers to process employees’ personal data in a fair, transparent, and lawful way.

As a small business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that you comply with the Data Protection Act. Failure to do so could result in a fine of up to £500,000.

In conclusion

As a small business owner in the UK, it is important that you are aware of employment law and how it applies to your business. Failure to comply with the law could result in costly penalties.

If you have any questions about employment law, please get in touch with us at Harwood HR. We offer a bespoke small business employment contract service, where we can can assist you, saving you any legal pitfalls.

Redundancy is a difficult subject for anyone in some form of employment. If your employer one day decides they need to trim down their workforce for any reason, a number of people on the payroll can be made ‘redundant’. And if you’re someone who finds out their particular role isn’t crucial to the job, it can come as a shock. 

But while being made redundant can come as a surprise, it shouldn’t be something you go through blind. And this is especially true when it comes to receiving your notice; here’s what you need to know about notice periods depending on where you work and how long you’ve worked. 

Being Made Redundant: What Happens? 

You’re entitled to quite a few things when you’re made redundant, including a period of notice, notice pay, redundancy pay, and any benefits that come as part of your employment package. 

The notice period you’re entitled to

No matter how long you’ve worked for your employer, if you’re made redundant you’re entitled to a notice period of some kind. Known as ‘statutory notice’, this is a minimum period that your employer must give when you’re being made redundant. Some employers may give you a longer notice period than what the statutory rules say you’re entitled to. 

If you’ve been working for your employer for more than a month and up to 2 years in total, you’re entitled to 1 week notice at a minimum. If you’ve been employed for more than 2 years and up to 12 years (capped at 12 weeks), you could be entitled to a maximum of 12 weeks – one week for each year you’ve been employed. 

What pay should you expect? 

Your employer will also be obligated to pay whilst you’re on notice. You’ll receive both a redundancy package with any notice pay on top – that is, if you work through your notice. If you’re told in advance you don’t have to work, you’ll still receive this pay. 

You may even get paid instead of being given a notice period. This is known as ‘pay in lieu of notice’ and is the only time an employer can end your contract without giving you an advanced warning. You’ll receive a standard notice period amount, based on your average weekly wage, and will be paid in an amount according to how long your notice period should be. 

Get Redundancy Support with Harwood HR

Being made redundant is usually a last resort for many companies out there, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Indeed, making staff redundant can be a kick in the teeth for both the company downsizing and the people losing their jobs. And that’s where we come in. 

Here at Harwood HR, we can provide redundancy support for both sides of the equation. Get in touch with us to ask about your rights by calling us on 0203 936 9171 – all of our consultations are free of charge.

Be familiar with the paternity leave letter

• An employee whose wife, civil partner or partner gives birth to a child, or who is the biological father of the child, is entitled to two weeks’ paternity leave provided that they have 26 weeks’ continuous service by the end of the 15th week before the week in which the child is expected.

Paternity leave is also available to adoptive parents where a child is matched or newly placed with them for adoption. Either the adoptive father or the adoptive mother may take paternity leave where the other adoptive parent has elected to take adoption leave. A separate policy is available in respect of adoption leave. To be eligible for paternity leave, the employee must have 26 weeks’ of continuous service ending with the week in which the child’s adopter is notified of having been matched with the child for adoption.

To qualify for paternity leave, the employee must also have, or expect to have, responsibility for the upbringing of the child and be making the request to help care for the child or to support the child’s mother.

A Paternity Leave Request Letter is a document used to notify an employer of your intention to take Ordinary Paternity Leave. 

How should I write a paternity leave letter?

A paternity leave letter should be polite, factual, accurate, and contain all the relevant information related to your leave request. As much as you can, it should also make use of brevity, and avoid embellishment.

Include; when do you plan to request your paternity leave for, how long and whether you would like to take the two weeks as one occasion or split to two one week blocks.

To begin with, a polite introduction outlining your request to take paternity leave at an expected due date is a good place to start. This provides a brief opening, and is best followed by a body and a conclusion, including a polite thanks.

If you have any verbal agreements made beforehand, listing them here can be helpful, too, not only to include but also to remind your employer of their consent.

What details should be included?

It’s wise to include your departure and return dates, including anything you expect your employer or cover to handle in your absence. A bullet point list can be useful, but is optional. 

This might include a few provisions that you will make to ensure work can carry on in your absence. For instance, you may say “all safety equipment will be securely locked and I will hand over my access keys to X the night of my departure.”

If you have attached any paperwork, make sure to refer that you have attached it to the letter. This will help relate the various documents to one application, and notify anyone reading your letter digitally or should they not see the forms included to chase up on that. 

How should you sign off?

A polite thank you for respecting your rights and obligations in the current matter is a healthy way of showcasing your appreciation for their amenity during this time – as well as serving as a gentle, non-intrusive reminder that you should be eligible for such an allowance.

Responding to a paternity letter from your employee

If you need help with writing a letter, responding to your employee’s request for paternity leave, then take a look at our template letter. 

Services that can aid with the writing of these letters and provide essential, outsourced and bespoke HR consultancy, such as Harwood HR Solutions, can help these essential processes move forward smoothly.

Feel free to get in touch to ensure your company becomes the hallmark of HR professionalism.

What Is Employee Wellbeing? 

Employee wellbeing is the state of the employee’s mental and physical health, resulting from dynamics both in and outside of the workplace. 

Why Should You Prioritise Your Workers’ Wellness? 

Prioritising your workers’ health can improve employee satisfaction and minimise stress levels, enabling your staff to be more productive. This, in turn, builds a positive working environment. While taking the necessary steps to achieve this may take some time, the results are worth the effort. 

The maximum working hours weekly is 48 hours, However, workers can go beyond the recommended working time in certain exceptions. Seeing that workers spend lots of time in their workplace, it’s no wonder that work-life significantly impacts their happiness. Therefore, prioritising their health can benefit your business in many ways. 

When your workers perceive that you care about their overall wellness, they are more likely to contribute to your business success. It’s also not difficult for your staff to be loyal to your brand when they are well taken care of. In fact, a study revealed that workers who enjoy a positive work environment and are more involved in work processes are 87% less likely to leave a company. 

How Can You Promote Your Workers’ Wellbeing? 

Here are a few ways that you can ensure that your workers are comfortable in every area of their lives. You can look at these in more detail by reading our blog on how to ensure employee wellbeing. 

• Don’t Overlook Mental Health Concerns
• Work Out What The Problems Are
• Recognise good work
• Dedicate time for mindfulness
• Create A More Flexible Workplace 
• Promote A More Active Lifestyle 

Employee wellbeing is beneficial for your business, and working with professionals will prove helpful. Therefore, you can feel free to contact Hardwood HR Solutions for more personalised solutions to promote your employee health and wellbeing. We offer Fitpack as part of our services. Fitpack’s comprehensive approach includes nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness. Through Fitpack, you’ll get access to all the tools necessary to help your people achieve optimal health, mentally and physically.

If you need HR support from a company that understands the needs of your business, contact us today. At Harwood HR we can support your business, help you to grow and promote your employees’ talents. Our UK-based team offers a range of HR support services and advice for SME businesses, including outsourced HR support.

One of the hardest decisions an employer will ever have to come across is the reasons for making staff redundant. The Company should always seek alternatives to redundancy, but where this is not possible and changes need to be made, it is important to fairly decide who goes and who stays. Remember, it is not the person being made redundant; it’s the role! 

Redundancy happens in all industries, and no matter how unpleasant it may be for everyone involved, it is a fair and legal reason for dismissal. But what is crucial is that you comply with all relevant laws and are objective in selecting the correct criteria for redundancy. If for example, an employee suspects you to have dismissed them for personal reasons then you risk potential legal action and damage to reputation. 

To ensure your business remains compliant, and to help you decide how to impose redundancy in your workplace, the following article looks at how to identify fair selection criteria for redundancy.

Common reasons for redundancy

Redundancy may be necessary for a variety of different reasons, including:

• New technology has made an employee’s job unnecessary
• A particular job no longer exists due to structural changes
• The employer needs to cut costs by reducing staff
• The business is closing down or has been taken over by another company

How to select your redundancy criteria

Your main task is to decide which employee or employees to make redundant. The following steps will help you to remain objective when making your decision and identify the key considerations to take into account.

• Define your pool for selection

Before you make a clear cut decision about who to let go, it can be useful to define the pool of employees who could be at risk for redundancy. This will help to narrow down your options and make it easier to impose your selection criteria. The pool will depend on the reasons for redundancy being necessary in the first place. Of course, if only one job is at risk, then you can narrow down your selection to a single employee. But if your company is being restructured or a department is being downsized, your pool will consist of everyone involved in that area of the business.

• Define your selection criteria

Now that you have created your selection pool, you now need to work out the criteria you will use to decide who to make redundant. You need to ensure the criteria are objective and measurable, rather than based on personal opinion. Examples of fair selection criteria may include:

• Standard of work and/or performance
• Skills, qualifications, and experience
• Attendance or disciplinary record

Your company may already have written selection criteria in place, in which case, you have an established framework to use. You should not deviate from this without good reason. Alternatively, you may be able to use length of service to help you decide, i.e. last in, first out. However, this may be seen as age discrimination if you use this as your only criterion.

• Apply your selection criteria

Once you have identified your selection criteria, it should be easy enough to apply it. Score each employee in the selection pool against the relevant criteria, and this will help you decide who to make redundant. Bear in mind, you will need to use a fair bit of judgement to help you in this task.

If you need further redundancy support or HR support, do not hesitate to contact us at Harwood HR solutions on 0203 936 9171 or send us an email to info@harwoodhrsolutions.co.uk.  

If you need HR support from a company that understands the needs of your business, contact us today. At Harwood HR we can support your business, help you to grow and promote your employees’ talents. Our UK-based team offers a range of HR support services and advice for SME businesses, including outsourced HR support.

5 valid reasons for Dismissal

Employees are assets to any company, but as a business owner, you are likely to be faced with a reason to consider dismissing one or more of your team.  As you would expect, legal protection is in place for employees for good reason, however, it is not true to state “it is impossible to dismiss somebody” or “the law is stacked against the employer”.  The statutory requirements simply dictate that a company follows a process that ensures that the dismissal is based on reasonable grounds and the individual is provided with an opportunity to present their case for the defence.   Therefore, to avoid employment tribunals, unnecessary legal fees and damage to reputation Companies are best advised to seek guidance from HR professionals and to follow the appropriate process.   

5 fair reasons for dismissal are as follows:

Capability

Dismissal based on an employee’s inability to perform competently can be for two reasons: poor performance and ill health. An employee is incapable of performing in their job when struggling with long-term or persistent sickness. In this case, you need to find ways to support them, give time for recovery, and consider other options before dismissal.

In the case of poor performance where an employee doesn’t meet satisfactory standards within their job, HR support should take them through the disciplinary process before dismissal.  Companies are advised to have clear policies in place for handling capability issues.

Conduct or Behaviour

People do make errors of judgement and people misbehave.  Both of these can provide good reason to dismiss an employee.  If an individual’s behaviour is divisive and disruptive then after following a process of formal warnings the individual may be dismissed.  An individual may also commit an act of misconduct i.e. operated outside of policy or made a work error due to being negligent etc.. and again, following a process of issuing warnings, if the misconduct continued then you could reasonably be dismissed.  Then there are acts of Gross Misconduct.  These are acts that are so serious that you can dismiss without having provided previous warnings.  Examples of Gross Misconduct offences are theft, racial abuse, physical aggression etc.  Please be aware however that you still need to follow a process ensuring that the individual accused of the act has had an opportunity to provide any mitigating circumstances.  There is no such thing as instant dismissal!!

Redundancy

Redundancy dismissals occur when an organisation no longer has the need for a specific role.  This may happen due to Company closure, department closure, company reorganisation / restructure or location change.  If you happen to be the job holder of that role then you are placed at serious risk of redundancy and are taken through a consultation process.  Redundancy is a specialist area and should consult with a HR professional before commencing any discussions.  There are many different legislative requirements to consider based on the individual circumstances.

Breach of a statutory restriction

This, although rare, applies when keeping an employee means breaking the law. For instance, when their working permit expires and they continue to work in your company. However, you’re still required to follow the due disciplinary and formal dismissal procedure.

Some other substantial reason

Every dismissal that doesn’t fit the other categories falls here. Some examples include:

• Organisational restructure that isn’t redundancy.
• Conflict of interest
• Personality clashes
• Temporary employee dismissal after their contract expires.
• Breakdown in trust and confidence.

Dismissal based on some other substantial reason requires you to have a solid case as a tribunal case would result in thorough testing of your reasoning and approach.

Types of Dismissal

These include:

• Fair dismissal: When an employer’s reasons for dismissal are sound and admissible, redundancy being among them. Other reasons also include employee qualifications, capability, or conduct.
• Unfair dismissal: This involves situations where there aren’t sufficient grounds for dismissal, or the HR services fail to follow company policies regarding the termination.
• Constructive dismissal: Involves scenarios where an employee leaves their job because they feel pushed out due to the treatment they receive from the employer. Despite the word ‘constructive’ this is not good and will most likely result in an employment tribunal claim.
• Wrongful dismissal: Although it could easily be mistaken for unfair dismissal, it involves a breach of an employee’s contract by the HR support during dismissal.

Summary

Employee dismissals are sensitive and need to be handled carefully by HR support. Ensure you have reasonable grounds like redundancy, capability, misconduct, breach of statutory restriction, or other substantial reasons to terminate employee contracts. Seek our help for HR services to exercise fairness in employee dismissal by following the Acas Code of Practice that defines your responsibilities.

If you need HR support from a company that understands the needs of your business, contact us today. At Harwood HR we can support your business, help you to grow and promote your employees’ talents. Our UK-based team offers a range of HR support services and advice for SME businesses, including outsourced HR support.

Employee wellbeing is critical to the efficient operation of any organisation. Without it, your company could suffer from a lack of productivity, low team morale, and an overall miserable working environment – not to mention an increase in absenteeism. Here are some basic strategies to boost employee wellbeing to keep your staff motivated. 

Dedicate Time For Mindfulness 

By introducing a few easy tactics into their daily routines, your staff may be able to deal better with stressful circumstances. Consider promoting the following mindfulness-boosting techniques to keep them from overworking when it comes to ensuring employee wellbeing.

• Concentrating on a single job at a time 
• Turning off digital gadgets a couple of times every day (lunch, at the very least) 
• Spending at least five minutes every day doing nothing (outside of working hours, of course)

Employees are more likely to be able to keep any negativity in control if they are encouraged to take time out to become aware of themselves and their environment. This, in turn, should decrease stress, lower blood pressure, enhance relationships with coworkers, and even increase productivity.

Recognise Good Work

Although acknowledgement may seem to be an obvious wellbeing enhancer, it’s sometimes ignored or forgotten about altogether. However, promoting and supporting workers’ objectives and ambitions (even minor ones) is critical to guaranteeing their motivation. 

This might be as simple as instituting a reward system for value-added ideas or honouring individuals who go above and beyond. You might do it by offering personalised incentives for staff to strive towards, or simply recognising when individuals do a good job. Whatever you want to do, just make sure you really do it. It will make a significant impact in terms of team morale and motivation and in ensuring employee wellbeing. 

Allow Flexible Working 

Consider giving flexible working hours so that your workers can tailor their jobs to their own demands. This might involve offering staff flexible start and finish hours or encouraging them to take more regular breaks.

 Recognising the requirements of your team will vastly boost employee wellbeing across the organisation. Making sure your workers are happy and healthy should be one of your top concerns; if you care about them, they will care about you and your organisation, leading to increased employee retention.

Work Out What The Problems Are

Negative employee wellbeing can sometimes be caused by underlying issues that are not visible without more investigation. If your company is suffering a high degree of absenteeism, for example, you must address the primary cause. Although it might be due to real causes, it could also be due to people being unhappy at work, overworking, or not being provided with the tools to keep healthy on the job. In other words, you need to do more when it comes to ensuring employee wellbeing. 

 Whether the issues are producing a lack of motivation, a poor grade of work, or a bad attitude, it’s always preferable to give workers the chance to discuss their concerns and provide a solution. From frequent one-on-one meetings to ensuring all new processes and systems are evident in continuing discussions, it can all assist in ensuring staff is kept in the loop, and their concerns are not overlooked.

If you want help prioritising the health and wellbeing of your employees, we offer Fitpack as part of our services. Fitpack’s comprehensive approach includes nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness. Through Fitpack, you’ll get access to all the tools necessary to help your people achieve optimal health, mentally and physically. 

If you need HR support from a company that understands the needs of your business, contact us today. At Harwood HR we can support your business, help you to grow and promote your employees’ talents. Our UK-based team offers a range of HR support services and advice for SME businesses, including outsourced HR support.