Why HR Matters
Our HR policies and procedures provide clear and professional guidance on a range of employment issues for company owners, managers, and employees. They are vital in enabling your business to effectively implement and enhance your business strategy, whilst providing a fair and consistent approach to dealing with day to day business activities. These policies & procedures will help to enhance the ‘psychological contract’ between you and your employees, and provide the best opportunities for creating a culture of high performance and high engagement within your company
HR policies present an easily accessible (and easy to understand) source of information for employees and managers alike, detailing how a varied range of situations should be addressed and managed within your company. They will detail the key rights and responsibilities for managers and employees, and the relevant packs will also include detailed factsheets to provide guidance and support for managers in interpreting and implementing each policy fully and effectively (along with all relevant forms, letters, process maps, templates, and documents that are required). Each of these documents or items are fully customisable so that you can adapt each to suit your business perfectly, and allow any existing policies or processes you have to align and integrate together with our packs seamlessly
A comprehensive set of policies and procedures provides a clear framework for dealing with day to day business activities, and the various packs available will ensure that your company operates a robust set of procedures to provide a professional platform for growing your business whilst avoiding serious legal or social costs to the company from costly and time-consuming tribunal cases
What are the packs for?
Policies and procedures are essential for ensuring your employees understand exactly what is required of them during their employment to maximise efficiency and minimise disruption & risk to the business. Effective procedures provide greater opportunities to develop and enhance all employee’s skills and capabilities, deliver the company objectives more efficiently & with a focussed strategy, drive innovation & engagement through positive behaviours, increase profitability and employee retention, and minimise risks or losses that can be caused by poor productivity, miscommunication and misunderstanding, or conflict within the workforce
The packs available will provide you with all of the essential knowledge and tools that you need to ensure that every employee in your business is treated equally and that your actions comply with current employment law, whilst providing managers with the knowledge and confidence required to address any issues swiftly & effectively
Why is this important?
Having a range of HR policies shows your employees that you value their welfare and wellbeing, and creates a culture of trust, fairness and inclusion throughout your company. By clearly defining the responsibilities of managers and employees, our policy packs can positively impact employee motivation, engagement, performance & retention, and improve your company’s reputation in the local market to aid better recruitment and profitability in order to help you grow your business effectively
There are also some policies or procedures that must be implemented in your business to remain legally complaint (providing an employee with formal written confirmation of their main terms and conditions of employment, having a written disciplinary procedure, grievance procedure, and health & safety procedure etc) or face potential prosecution and hefty fines
Even where you are not legally obliged to provide a policy or procedure on certain subjects or working practices, there may be a statutory Code of Practice relevant to those processes which would need to be followed as a failure to do so may lead to any award given at an Employment Tribunal to be increased by 25%
There were 117,926 Employment Tribunal claims in 2021 with constructive unfair dismissal (where the employee claims that the working environment was so bad they had to resign) and discrimination amongst the most common complaints, and 85% of claims found or settled in favour of the claimant
Legal costs to defend a straightforward tribunal claim are on average £9,000 plus the time taken away from the business for the defendant/company owners. Complex cases that include discrimination allegations increase those legal fees to an average of £24,000.
The current maximum compensatory award for constructive unfair dismissal is £93,878 (with the minimum award for some types of unfair dismissals set at £6,959) PLUS a basic award of up to £17,130
Compensation for a successful discrimination claim (which could be brought pre, during, or up to 3 months post-employment) is unlimited and could be the result of a single failure to address mental health & wellbeing concerns raised by an employee. Some recent examples of successful tribunal claims are:
Recruitment Disability Discrimination: A police officer discovered that her hearing had deteriorated during a routine medical, but was deemed fit and capable to carry out her duties. She later applied for a position in another team and was refused the position on the basis that her hearing may get worse in the future. The tribunal found that her rejection amounted to direct disability discrimination and awarded her £26,616.05 in compensation
Disciplinary Unfair Dismissal: A lecturer who was accused of sending aggressive messages to colleagues was dismissed by the University he worked for. He claimed unfair dismissal at a tribunal and was awarded £15,000 after the tribunal ruled that, despite there being no denial from the employee that he had sent several text messages to colleagues, there had not been a proper investigation into the allegations made against him
Performance Management Constructive Dismissal: A manager at an underperforming logistics company had been repeatedly blamed for the poor financial performance of his branch by his line manager. After another successive period of poor performance, he was given a ‘public dressing down’ in a group email involving several peers, where his performance was described as an “omnishambles”. The tribunal ruled this email constituted a repudiatory breach of the employment contract and awarded £14,000 in compensation for constructive unfair dismissal
Absence Management Unfair Dismissal: A worker at a production factory accrued 808 instances of absence over a 20 year period, which ultimately led to their dismissal for the most recent period of absence. The employee claimed at a tribunal and won an unfair dismissal claim after the tribunal found that the employer had not followed its own absence management procedures. Because of the company’s failure to follow these procedures, the tribunal ruled that by the point in time the worker’s employment was ended, dismissal was “not a sanction which fell within the range of reasonable responses available to them”
Grievance Constructive Dismissal: An employee had been absent from work due to sickness, his sick pay was calculated and paid incorrectly due to various errors made by his manager. He raised a grievance and the original grievance decision was to claim that the employee owed the company £2000. He appealed that decision and an independent manager overturned it, finding that the employee was owed in excess of £6000 which was agreed to be paid within a certain time period that the company then failed to meet. The employee resigned the following day citing a fundamental breakdown in trust and confidence, and claimed for constructive dismissal at an employment tribunal. The tribunal agreed that the way in which the employee had been treated during and after the grievance process amounted to a breach of trust and confidence and also the breach of express contractual terms relating to pay
Bullying & Harassment: An NHS employee was sent fake emails by her manager informing her that she had to give a presentation the next day as a practical joke. The employee found the situation “extremely stressful” and complained to another manager about it. She was then ostracised and subjected to numerous incidents of shared spreadsheets she had updated being tampered with and having information deleted, and the contents of her desk drawers being removed. The employment tribunal found that the behaviour she was subjected to amounted to bullying & harassment, and she was awarded almost £10,000 in compensation
Flexible Working Constructive Dismissal: An employee in a national high street retailer was asked to start working weekends despite her manager knowing that she had childcare problems over weekends. The employee asked for flexible working arrangements and was told that she must work weekends because if she was allowed not to then “everyone else would want the same”, the only solution offered to her was to bring her daughter to work with her. An employment tribunal found that the employers failure to explore alternative solutions was neglecting their responsibility, and awarded the employee £25,558 in compensation
Holiday & Statutory Leave Automatically Unfair Dismissal: An employee had to take a few hours off work because his child was ill, and he needed to put childcare arrangements in place. When he arrived at work he was told that he would be facing disciplinary action for his lateness. He refused to sign the ‘lateness form’ arguing that he had a legal right to take dependant leave, and was subsequently dismissed for refusing to follow management instructions. The employment tribunal upheld his claim for unfair dismissal because it related to him exercising the right to take time off to care for dependants, and as the employee had suffered a detriment for exercising a statutory right it was therefore automatically unfair
Health & Safety Detriment and Unfair Dismissal: A worker made complaints to his manager about what he perceived to be an unsafe working environment, the manager ignored his complaints but decided to remove him from the project he was working on and place him on furlough instead (at 80% of his usual rate of pay). After further complaints were made by the employee he was dismissed for his disruptive behaviour. The employment tribunal found that he had valid claims for unfair dismissal, health and safety detriment, and health and safety dismissal, and ordered compensation to be paid to the employee of £33,571.17 plus ordering the company to pay the employee’s costs of £6,252 (a total bill of £39,823.17 for the company to pay)
The following Essential Packs are available to purchase (which will also include key advice on how best to interpret and implement each policy & procedure, and all relevant forms, documents, letters, process maps and guidance notes):
Performance Management HR Pack
Holiday & Statutory Leave HR Pack
The following Supplementary Packs are also available to purchase (which will again include key advice on how best to interpret and implement each policy & procedure, and all relevant forms, documents, letters, process maps and guidance notes):
Mental Health and Wellbeing HR Pack
The above policies & procedures can also be purchased as standalone documents in bundles of all 8 Essential HR Policies, all 6 Supplementary HR Policies, or the complete raft of all 14 policies and procedures in one great value bundle
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT:
We also provide the following as standard templates, or with the option to have each one tailor made to be bespoke for your company (with any additional content you require):
Contract of Employment & Offer of Employment Letter
If you require any further help or guidance, or would like to discuss an issue that is currently affecting your business (or seek advice on changes you are considering implementing) then we also offer a low cost Virtual HR Department service that provides you with direct access to one of our highly qualified and experienced team of HR business professionals and employment law experts