Absence Management

Dealing with a member of staff who is off long term can be difficult. It can be a real challenge to balance the needs of your business with the kind of support you want to be able to give to your employee. So, let us guide you through the process. We’ll advise you on your legal obligations and what you need to do from a best practice perspective, and we’ll also speak directly to your employees and offer them appropriate levels of support.

Ideally, we’ll help you to bring them back into the workplace, but if this isn’t going to be the case, then we’ll guide you through the different options available.

Short-term absence can also be an issue. It’s frustrating when a member of staff is frequently absent because it means you can’t always rely on them, and the rest of the team also start to feel the pain too.

We can help you to have strong, robust absence management policies in place, which will deter those employees who pull frequent sickies, and enable you to effectively manage those that continue to cause issues.

Diversity, equality, and inclusion

Trust us, these are not buzz words. The time to get serious about diversity, equality, and inclusion – sometimes referred to as DEI – is now.

Not only is it financially in your interests as a business, given that recent tribunal pay outs have been in the tens of thousands, but it’s the right thing to do.

Statistics show that more diverse organisations are more successful. This is because senior leaders are able to see past the concept of hiring someone that ‘looks’ like them. They know that hiring someone who can bring something different to the table, be it their skill set, or their life experience, is valuable. 

And enabling everyone in your organisation to feel as though they can show up for work and be their true, authentic self, is powerful. It increases engagement, productivity, and innovation.

And who doesn’t want more of all three of those things!?

Brexit and employing from overseas

Gone are the days where we could employ a European citizen with just their passport. If you currently have employees from within the EU, whom you employed prior to Brexit, you have an obligation to make sure they have the required settled status documentation.

We have worked with both small and large organisations, to employ specialist skill sets globally. This means we are experts in the sponsorship licence process.

So, if you are considering hiring from overseas, including Europe now, then get in touch and let us take the hassle of processing sponsorship licenses and visas off your plate.

Employee engagement

When it comes to people, research has shown time and time again, that employees who are engaged significantly outperform those that are not engaged. Businesses with engaged employees outperform those without by 202%!! This means that any investment you make into boosting engagement is likely to see a (very!) positive return.

There are many reasons for employees to not feel engaged. It could be that they don’t get on with their manager. Or perhaps they don’t believe that the organisation is aligned well to their personal values. It could even be that they just aren’t challenged in their role.

Getting buy in and investment from your senior management team, to commit to increasing levels of employee engagement, is powerful stuff. If your business’s leaders increase their visibility and their accessibility to the wider workforce, it is likely that engagement levels will increase. 

Investing in good communication, and considering how information moves around your organisation, is another way to increase levels of engagement. People can’t feel proud of something your business has achieved if they don’t know about it. And they can’t invest their own effort into it, if they don’t know what the bigger picture or broader purpose is.

And some incentives won’t go amiss either!

Flexible working

Flexible working is a statutory right for employees who meet the required criteria.

And if going through a global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we can be more flexible with how we work, and how we expect others to work.

So, whether you have an employee coming back to work after maternity leave, who has requested to work part-time, or whether you see a big picture of hybrid office and home working, let us guide you through each step.

Disciplinary and Grievance

Most business owners squirm at the thought of having to dismiss an employee. And the fear of having a formal grievance land on your desk, is enough to drive anyone potty!

But you don’t have to worry. Trust us when we say we’ve seen it all. We really have – we’ve had situations that have made us blush, made us howl with laughter (professionally of course!) and situations that have just stunned us. This means that:

1. We can probably write a best-selling book.
2. We know exactly what to do, regardless of the situation.

So, whether you need some support to do an investigation, or you need a HR representative to advise on and attend a disciplinary or grievance hearing, we’ll be there to guide you through every step.

And if it looks like it’s going to be a difficult decision, we’ll also support you to manage the difficult conversation. 

These kinds of situations nearly always get out of hand. They always take longer to deal with, and they are always complex. So put your trust in us and let us resolve the problem quickly and efficiently.

Maternity and Parental Rights

Parenting comes in all shapes and sizes, and one size does not always fit all.

Whether it’s a lady who is pregnant, a mum who is breastfeeding, or an employee going through IVF or the adoption process, you need to know how to deal with each situation effectively, and sensitively.

It could be that you have an employee who has recently lost a child – possibly one of the worst situations imaginable. How do you deal with this? 

It’s tough – really tough. 

We’ve dealt with all manner of situations underneath the ‘family friendly’ umbrella – both in a personal and professional capacity – so trust us when we say we can support you with this. Don’t put your foot in it, let us help you.

Performance Management

It can be difficult when you have an employee who is just not performing in their role. It can be frustrating from the point of view that you haven’t got a strong enough skill set in a key role, which is stemming the growth of your business. Or there are relationship issues with an employee and their manager, which is having a negative effect on the whole team.

Thankfully there are ways to deal with these kinds of issues.

We can guide you through each step of this incredibly time-consuming and complex process. We can offer a variety of solutions and advise of you of the legal risks of each. And if it comes to a bit of a nasty end, we will also be there to support you, your employee, and any other members of your team through.

Recruitment

Well let’s just get this bit out of the way – we are NOT a recruitment agency!

(We have nothing against recruitment agencies, we just aren’t one!)

We are absolute experts in recruitment, and we challenge you to give us a role that we can’t fill with an incredibly talented candidate. So, whether it’s a recruitment drive for a host of call centre employees, or a very niche and senior role, give us a call and we’ll find the right person.

You may just want us to filter a few CVs and sit in on your interviews, or you may want us to manage the whole process. Either way, we’ll make sure you’re legally compliant, following a fair process, and we’ll wow your candidates, so they’ll be lining up at the door to join your organisation.

Test us!

Training and Development

Investing in employee training and development is just so important these days. The job market is so competitive that most people, but particularly millennials and Gen Z’s, just don’t jump for a bit of extra cash.

They want opportunities. The chance to learn new skills – and importantly – the chance to apply them, is paramount. And it works both ways, too. If you invest in your people, they’ll invest in your business. They’ll commit and they’ll show unwavering dedication to growing their careers alongside growing your business.

It’s also proven that training and developing your employees leads to increased engagement, motivation, and productivity. We can support you to build training plans, even succession plans, to get the best out of your people.

We also build bespoke training programmes and courses and are experts in upskilling your team in people management.

Restructuring

Making changes to your headcount, or even just making changes to some of your teams to maximise skill sets, can be difficult.

It can also be really costly if you get it wrong.

Even if you are hopeful that there will be no redundancies, it doesn’t mean you can get away with not following the correct processes.

Restructures, and even just cutbacks resulting in redundancies can be hard – if your business is on the smaller side, it can feel really personal. So, let us handle the situation professionally and properly, so that you are covering all your legal bases, and your employees – even if they are leaving your business – feel as if they have been treated with dignity, kindness, and respect.

Restructuring

Making changes to your headcount, or even just making changes to some of your teams to maximise skill sets, can be difficult.

It can also be really costly if you get it wrong.

Even if you are hopeful that there will be no redundancies, it doesn’t mean you can get away with not following the correct processes.

Restructures, and even just cutbacks resulting in redundancies can be hard – if your business is on the smaller side, it can feel really personal. So, let us handle the situation professionally and properly, so that you are covering all your legal bases, and your employees – even if they are leaving your business – feel as if they have been treated with dignity, kindness, and respect.

Regulated Industries

The real advantage of working with a HR consultancy is that you can never underestimate the true depth and breadth of our experience. We have worked in a plethora of industries, including – but by no means limited to – education, healthcare, construction, and engineering.

And we’d say we’re bona fide experts in the regulations required. For instance, we have a long-standing client in primary care, who consistently receive recognition as outstanding by the CQC, thanks in part to our interpretation of the CQC guidelines and how we translate these into robust HR processes.

So, if your industry has regulations that you may or may not be meeting, or you’re worried that your HR provision isn’t in line with any specific industry-related requirements, then please get in touch and we can put your mind at ease.