To conclude our series dealing with questions raised at our Handling Grievances webinar in April, here are our thoughts on three last queries around how events at grievance and investigation meetings are recorded. If the individual states they want to record the meeting, are we able to say no?… Continue Reading
As nearly the last of our answers to queries raised at our Handling Grievances Webinar last month, here are two very important questions about how far HR can or should act as a neutral in the resolution of an employee grievance. 10. Can you train an HR person to be a qualified mediator rather than … Continue Reading
I love this next question from our webinar last month. It goes right to the heart of what a grievance is about – obtaining redress where due – and raises some very interesting issues as to the extent of the employee’s own obligations to help in that process. 8. If someone refuses a mediation to … Continue Reading
Human Resources managers try not to have too many hate-figures in their internal client base (not too great for the old professional image, and all that) but you won’t find too many in the HR world who have any time for the serial complainer. Here are some thoughts on that front in response as a … Continue Reading
Over 700 people signed up to our Handling Grievances webinar last week, reinforcing our view that the return to the workplace (RTW) process is going to be a fertile breeding ground for such complaints by employees, some around new working conditions, some alleging health and safety failures and others just to vent minor unhappinesses and … Continue Reading
As attention turns increasingly to the practicalities of the physical return to the workplace in what may be little over 3 months, questions of employers’ rights and obligations in relation to testing and vaccination are becoming more common. These are vexed areas which can easily put common interest into conflict with civil liberties. Just how … Continue Reading
I spoke at a commercial webinar yesterday concerning the opportunities for and obstacles to mediation as a solution to workplace disputes in the pandemic. Other speakers represented employers and the mediation community. Here are some takeaways:… Continue Reading
Here are brief answers to two more of the questions raised at this week’s webinar on Effective Settlement Agreements. Can we make it a term of a Settlement Agreement that an employee will not make a DSAR after he leaves? Yes and no. Yes, in that he can sign up to such a term. No, … Continue Reading
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency has changed life as we know it, including by severely disrupting business on a nationwide scale. In some cases, employers have been forced to temporarily close their doors and cease operations, while others have had to make radical changes to the workplace in order to maintain operations. … Continue Reading
Just flicking idly through the ICO’s new guidance the other evening, as you do when the only alternative is Ant & Dec, and two paragraphs caught my eye. In the section relating to DSARs which are “manifestly unfounded” (and can therefore be batted away by the employer) appear two examples, where:… Continue Reading
The limelight on Hollywood has turned fifty shades darker recently with more high- profile celebrities being called out on allegations of historic inappropriate behaviour. The news of late has been littered with claim after claim of sexual harassment by celebrities against their peers in years gone by but don’t be fooled into thinking it is … Continue Reading
Statutory construction can be a bit like nuclear fusion – you take an atom of something relatively ordinary and then subject it to such pressure that it explodes into a million flaming pieces and lays waste to your entire afternoon. Employment Tribunals and Courts do the same to words, taking perfectly mundane sentences and phrases … Continue Reading
Courtesy of Acas, here are the top ten myths to be “busted” by the Government’s promised campaign to make the Gender Pay Gap Regulations look less over-engineered than they really are together with some italicised comments of our own. MYTH: We did an equal pay audit a while ago so we’re fine FACT: Equal Pay deals … Continue Reading
Dealing with employee absences and grievances in redundancy consultation You’ve delivered the at risk letter and sent the employee home on pay pending the formal consultation meeting. As an HR professional it is possible that your faith in human nature has become a little corroded over time, so you are not completely surprised when what … Continue Reading
