Sladeys Blog

Over the year I will try to keep you abreast of the changes to small buy significant things  relating to good employment practice or what you need to know if things do go wrong, or some planning is needed.

An annual increase to the compensation limits is coming into force from 1 February 2012, which will see a rise to the maximum  compensatory award for unfair dismissal (for Tribunal cases) from £68,400 to £72,300. The maximum amount for a week’s pay (which is used to  calculate the basic award in an unfair dismissal claim and to calculate statutory redundancy pay) is also rising from £400 to £430.

If you need any advice on this or anything else relating to HR, running your business or employment practice please contact me my email or on 01623 448304

Russell Jones

I recently had the opportunity to talking to Mansfield 2020 at their January monthly meeting.  

It’s a great organisation and if you own or operate a business in North Notts and are not part of it you are really missing out on a great networking and business  opportunity.

Anyway back to TUPE.

What is it? It’s not part of  a Shakespearean play or aYorkshireman’s hairpiece.

But it is something you need to know about if you are buying or selling a business.

It ‘s an acronym that stands for  -  Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment.

A real mouthful but it does say what it is  – a system of protection for  employees.

Whether buying or selling  a business which already employs people, TUPE can be the silent killer for the deal or even for profitably running the business afterwards or making the money you thought you wanted from the sale.

It protects any employee who has been at the business for more than 1 year from simply being dismissed.

And most importantly it controls who pays for the cost of bad employment practice.

So go in and buy the company with a view to getting rid of staff to make it profitable and you could be in a mess.

And with a big compensation and probable legal bill.

Or sell with no thought as to who is responsible for redundancy payments if any crop up and you may be crying in your celebration drink and you part with your well earned cash.

The buyer could end up with:

• Employees with contract  terms that effect the profit from the business

• Employees with large redundancy entitlements which the buyer or new owner  has to fund in the future to restructure the business

• Employees with grievances and issues which the new owner has to deal with.

The seller might just end up with a big bill  when the new owner cuts through the staff bill.

But things can be done  to include:

• Getting the seller to come clean about employee contracts terms and grievance/disciplinary issues

• Getting the buyer to inform the seller if they have plans to  reduce employment numbers.

• Give early thought to what/how you want the employees to fit in your view of the business for the future.

The really sad part is that if you end up  talking to me about it, I’m a litigator and that means it’s  gone wrong and someone is picking up a large bill, which is never nice.

So the motto as always is get early effective and inexpensive advice by asking the questions up front.

The way forward is to get  a business solicitor and HR adviser to be bringing up the relevant questions, and sorting through the employment contracts before the sale or purchase  is finalised, to make sure you know the effect  on the price either way.

It’s only a flavour in a few words, but if you need anything more then please email or telephone Christie Limb or Joanne Godson from our business and HR department.

Russell Joones

01623 448304

The Minister of State for the Department for Work and Pensions, has announced the proposed rates for statutory sick pay and statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay for 2012.

The changes are expected to come into force on 9 April 2012 are:

Most business owners believe that as long as they operate under the protection of a Limited  Company.

In a recent employment discrimination case, 2 employees of a Limited Company sued both the Company and it’s Directors for compensation  following complaints of discrimination at  their work place.

The claim was very large and in the end was assessed at £37,000 and both Company and Directors were found liable for the  compensation.

The Limited Company became insolvent and the Directors  appealled against the finding by the Appeal Tribunal upheld the award and the finding against the Directors personally.

It’s a salutory lesson to be learned.

There is no cap on compensation that can be award in discrimination cases and no escape by trying to avoid the award, if the employer is a Limited Company, by dissolving the company.

As in all cases, it is better to get advice sooner rather than later,  which can often either avoid or significantly lessen the impact of an  employment problem.

Please feel free to email me or contact our HR team on 01623 451111

Russell Jones

Are  ‘compromise agreements’ set for a change? 

When an employee is dismissed the employer and employee often enter into  an agreement to stop the employee going to an Employment Tribunal.

Whilst this might seem unfair, what it does mean is the employee being able to get legal advice on the settlement at the employer’s expense, which has to be good for both parties at such a difficult time.

Thankfully these are not going to be phased out but it is being suggested that they are to be replaced by ‘settlement agreements’ which will be simpler and will have standard wording. The effect will be the same though.

At Fidler and Pepper can give advice both on  sides to the problem and if you need any more help on this please email me or contact me on 01623 451111.

Most larger businesses and some smaller ones tend to run an internal appraisal system.  If you don’t run one then you probably know what it is. If you’ve been on Mars then it’s a way of appraising staff to see how they are doing and what they need to work on for the next year. Sometimes it’s targeted towards the staff themselves setting their own targets (I think the health service call them PDRs – Personal Development Review).

Done well they can be really useful – a good tool for measuring how you are doing. Done poorly they can often be a waste of time for both parties and not pull out any meaningful information.

So if you’ve got to do them you might as well do them properly.

Some golden rules for a good appraisal

1. No surprises – this can be difficult if you’ve got stuff you want to raise but don’t feel you can – the appraisal is an ideal time to raise it. However ideally you’d be raising any issues during the year.
2. Make time – give yourselves time to discuss how things are going without having to rush out to something else after a few minutes.
3. Make a place – make sure you meet somewhere that’s conducive to open discussion – it should be private and comfortable.
4. Agree a plan – try and agree how you will move things forward – it’s not just about reviewing the last year – it’s equally about setting an idea of where you want to be in a year’s time

If you want advice on your HR issues then get in touch with Joanne Godson

Around Christmas you normally see a flurry of blogs and press reports about how the office party can ruin your life. There’s usually a seasonal guide to what to do and what not to do, combined with hilarious stories of how it went very wrong for one or more unfortunate individuals.

I thought I’d write about our office party but not from a legal perspective, just to explain how we do it and how it’s been a constantly positive thing throughout the recent recession.

1. We pay for everything. We’ve kept this going. At the depth of the recession we gave people tokens for a number of drinks (no-one ran out of tokens) but we scrapped that the year after. They pre-order an arrival drink over the intranet which is ready for them when they get there (we lay on a coach from the office to the venue). To try and pace it out a bit we limit everyone to getting single measures from the bar – no doubles, triples etc. You can still get drunk but you have to walk a bit more.
2. We close the office down for the party. On the day of the office party we shut up shop at around 10:30. It’s held on our last day open before Christmas so when it’s over we’ve broken up for the Christmas break.
3. You don’t have to come. If you don’t come you’d need to take it as half a day’s holiday but there’s no compulsion on you to come.
4. There is a seating plan but we sit people with their workmates – this is to stop the situation where people would gather at the door to rush in like it was a jumble sale to make sure they could all get a table together.
5. We mingle – the Partners get drinks – this has evolved but we expect Partners to get drinks for people – we’re not acting as formal waiters, but we will go round tables and check they are all alright for drinks. They can get the drinks themselves – it’s not a way of restricting it – it’s just a nice gesture to go and get them for people.
6. Partners wives/husbands no longer come and Partners are split up – each Partner sits on a table with their department. The partners wives/husbands used to come along and there used to be a ‘partners’ table. We scrapped this a few years ago – firstly saving money as the recession started to bit and then we decided to move away from a ‘partners only’ table. It’s all about breaking down the ‘them and us’ mentality.
7. Get drunk – or not – if people want to get drunk they can do. If people don’t want to get drunk that’s perfectly alright too – plenty don’t, and there is no imperative to get drunk. We do keep an eye out for people getting ill.
8. Carol singing. We started this a few years ago – we are sat on tables of 5-8 people. Towards the end of the meal Russell leads everyone in the 12 days of Christmas. This sounds awful but it actually works really well – each table sings one of the rounds (with Russell conducting!) and end up competing with each other to see who can sing the loudest.
9. I say a few words. I try and summarise who things are going, and thank everyone for their hard work during the year.
10. We have a disco afterwards – this normally wraps up around 5pm and we lay on a minibus from the venue back to the office. We normally have quiet background music during the meal and then ramp it up when people are ready
11. We’ve done it every year. In 2008 because of the housing market collapse we were forced to make half the firm redundant. It was a bad time and some people questioned whether we should still have the office party. However we (and especially the department hardest hit by redundancies) felt we wanted a reason to get dressed up and let our hair down at a difficult time. It became a positive thing.
12. We never used to have any dress code – people just used to get dressed up. Last year we introduced a black tie dress code for the men – it’s not compulsory – just preferred. This year we’ve just said ‘smart/party wear – no casual jeans or trainers’. I’ll probably go black tie again.

So that’s how we do it. It’s not perfect but we feel it is pretty good.