How can employers minimise the risk and cost of employing staff?
Employers are at serious risk of losing an employment tribunal case if:
- Their HR policies, contracts and processes are not kept updated and compliant. - They fail to precisely follow the correct procedures
- They do not act in a timely manner when a problem arises
Losing a tribunal can be costly, especially for a small company, as legal costs can double the size of any award and even if an employer wins, it is rare for an employer to recover its costs.
So how can employers deal easily with employment legislation, without incurring excessive and repeated solicitor bills?
One answer is to use the services of a specialist human resource consultancy which, with their much lower operating costs, have become very popular with thousands of employers.
Choosing a supplier
When considering what service to use, an employer should consider the following:
- The first task should be to ensure that the employer’s HR documents are up-to-date and compliant. The best providers work with the employer to create documents that fit their organisation and business, rather than insist that the employer uses a standard set of documents.
- Assisting the employer to keep their documents updated is also critical and a good supplier can do this task on line supplemented by at least an annual visit to the client.
- The second vital element of such a service is an email and telephone advice-line. It is important to discover whether the suppliers’ service includes advice on all HR related questions or only the legal ones. The best providers do both.
- Another key to assessing a good supplier is whether you get direct access to an experienced HR advisor or whether you are likely to get passed around in a large call-centre. A free trial of the service should be available to test the service and it is worth taking advantage of it.
- A quality supplier will also follow-up any call with an email detailing their advice. The provider should store this advice on their system in case it is needed in terms of further developments or, in the worse case, a tribunal claim.
- To support these services, the supplier should have a high quality interactive website which provides a full range of HR documents and 24x7 advice on many staff management issues.
- Having online letter templates is an important part of any website as the content required in such letters can change as a consequence of new laws or Tribunal rulings.
- The employer should always ask to have trial access to the website, before deciding to proceed, in order to see what it really offers and to see how easy it is to use.
- Finally, the supplier should offer insurance which protects the employer against the costs of a Tribunal award and the legal costs. In assessing any insurance, you need to know the limits on a single claim and the annual limit plus any excess. You should also check how strictly the insurance is interpreted should you make an error in handling a problem and ask about any connection between the insurer and the service provider.
A good supplier will also provide you with cost effective on site HR support for a wide range of situations including grievance and disciplinary hearings, redundancy programmes, training, job evaluation and performance management.
Hopefully, the foregoing will help James Cowper clients to make the right choice.
This article was contributed by David Rankin of BusinessHR. He can be contacted at david.rankin@businesshr.com
For more information please see http://www.jamescowper.co.uk/assets/html/BusinessHR.html
