Category Archives: HR Tips for Business and Charities

What it says on the tin – some useful guidance for smaller organisations on HR and employment law topics

Want to make your company look stupid? Here’s How!

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What is it about recruitment that allows managers to do stupid things that would probably get them fired if they tried it in any other part of the business?

A recruitment website has recently been touting the “Top 10 toughest interview questions” it has come across, suggesting that “job candidates … should be ready to answer any question” in an interview.

Really? Such as How many people born in 2013 were named Gary? (No. 8 on the list). Which of course might be a relevant question if a knowledge of useless trivia is a key requirement of the job. (Anyone who works for BT, who used the question, may be able to confirm if it is essential to know this to work there)

Or how about How many hours would it take to clean every single window in London? (No.4) I suppose this is possibly relevant if you’re running a commercial window cleaning business with the objective of creating a monopoly in the capital. Less so, I would suggest, for tech people in IBM.

Or this one If you were a fruit, what kind would you be and why? (No.2) I can’t even begin to suggest how this might be relevant to any job, let alone a Trip Leader with a Travel company.

Recruitment is a two-way process. Not only are you assessing whether a candidate is right for you but they are deciding whether your business is the right one for them. Idiotic questions like this tell candidates one of three things:

  • Your managers don’t know what they are doing
  • Your managers enjoy humiliating and tricking their staff (and your company culture condones this)
  • The decision making processes within your company are fundamentally flawed if you have appointed such people to positions of authority

(Oh, and  similar “clever” recruitment tricks like this one are just as bad for your reputation)

By all means ask tough and challenging questions that are relevant to the job. But unless you want your managers and your organisation to look completely ridiculous and laughable, drop the smart-alec questions, tricks and tests from your recruitment process.

5 great ways to manage people better

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Today is #SmallBizSaturday – a worldwide day for celebrating and supporting small businesses. Here at Ariadne Associates we support small businesses throughout the year, of course, but today seems a good day to remind small business owners and managers of some of the simple things they can do to get the best from their staff.

  1. Say Thank You (and please). Basic good manners don’t disappear once you start work. If someone does something you have asked them to, say thanks. And particularly acknowledge if they’ve done it well – a great piece of customer service, solving a problem, or identifying a new way to increase sales.
  2. Remember you are dealing with people. You don’t have to be best friends with your staff (in fact you probably shouldn’t) but you should appreciate that they aren’t just automatons. Be aware, and take an interest in, the fact that Betty in accounts is worrying about her son’s A Levels; that Rajesh likes to travel to away matches so doesn’t like doing overtime at the weekend; that Paulina who works behind the counter is doing night classes because she really wants to be an engineer.
  3. Be professional. No-one wants to work for an employer who is slipshod about their pay, doesn’t bother to issue them with a contract or who ignores basic employment law. Pay the same attention to this as you do to sales, marketing, accounts etc. And get specialist advice if you’re not an expert.
  4. Be fair and consistent. This doesn’t necessarily mean do the same thing on every occasion, but it does mean that you should consider everything before making a decision. Don’t allow Phil to take extra holidays just because he’s your star salesperson and then not allow Deidre, who may have an equally good reason, but who isn’t doing so well.
  5. Don’t forget that if someone doesn’t appear to fit into your business, you were the one who recruited them. Learn from what went wrong in a bad hire before you start recruiting again.

Small businesses often can’t beat their bigger rivals in the pay and benefits they can offer. So you have to compete in other ways to attract and retain good people. Making your business a good place to work is a great (and low-cost) way to start. And if you’d like to know more about how you can do this, why not read this next?

When something unfair can be fair

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Many small employers – and indeed employees – struggle with the concept of “fair dismissal”. In a way it’s not surprising, since fair in employment law terms means something different to fair in ordinary language. I’ve discussed before exactly what it means here and here, but when dismissal is combined with the strange legal term “some other substantial reason” it’s not surprising that people’s heads begin to spin.

Thankfully, we have a great example today of a real-life case where two of these legal situations apply – and it’s a situation I’ve encountered several times with clients and is always fraught with difficulty.

The company did sub-contracted work for a much bigger organisation. As part of one contract they had an onsite manager.  The client wasn’t happy with the performance of the contract and demanded that the company bring in a new manager. The company asked for time for the existing manager to try to improve things but the client was insistent.

The company then had a problem. They had an employee who had no job, and despite their efforts they did not have an alternative role for her that matched her skills and status. They did offer her a job on lower pay which she turned down. She wasn’t redundant however, as her job still existed, and because they had never discussed performance issues with her, the company had no grounds to dismiss her for this reason. Indeed, until the client raised it, they weren’t aware that there were problems with the contract.

They decided that they had no other option but to dismiss, using the “some other substantial reason” as their justification. The client did not want the employee on their premises and the company didn’t have another job for her. Quite understandably, the employee claimed unfair dismissal. She lost however because the tribunal ruled that the company had both a fair reason (she could not work on the contract she was employed on because the client didn’t want her) and they had followed a fair process (looking for alternative jobs). The tribunal did recognise that the situation was “unfair” to the employee in the normal sense of the word – and many would sympathise with her position –  but her employer had behaved fairly and legally.

It’s worth remembering that such cases are often good and easy to understand examples for small employers – and they also help to banish the myth that “tribunals are biased in favour of employees”.

The High School Merry Go Round

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Like many a parent of a 10/11 year old, I’m currently trekking around local secondary schools in order to make my preference choices in the next academic year.

Three schools have stood out, for different reasons.

School A, an “outstanding” and massively oversubscribed school, did very little on its open day to sell the school to prospective parents and pupils. The attitude was “We can pick the cream of the crop, and if you’re lucky enough to get in you’ll do really well here”

School B, an “outstanding” school, was welcoming and both staff and pupils put in a lot of effort to promote it. But their selection method (effectively a lottery) means that candidates have little or no chance of influencing the process

School C, a  “good” school with some outstanding characteristics, spent a lot of time talking about their values and ethos, and significantly let the pupils act as tour guides so that parents and children could ask questions. They also invited pupils separately to spend a day at the school.

What I found interesting was that the schools operated in the same way as many employers do when recruiting staff. Many companies take the view of School A. They assume that individuals would love to work for them and do little to sell themselves to job applicants. In a recession they can get away with it, but once the job market becomes more competitive they can struggle to find suitable staff.

School B is typical of many companies who’ve heard of “employer branding” but don’t fully understand what it means. They do a lot to convince candidates they are good firm to work for but then let something in the selection process let them down and make the candidate feel it is all window dressing

Companies like School C recognise they are competing for staff and have to convince people as to why they should work for them. Being open and honest about their culture, and recognising that “branding” is only part of it, is a key factor.

So which category does your organisation fall into? And if you are complaining currently about skill shortages, what are you doing to make your company the place that employees want to go?

Let’s Settle This (Part 2)

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In my last post, I looked at when a small business might want to consider a Settlement Agreement. This follow up post looks at some of the practical issues when discussing an agreement.

The first thing is making the initial approach to the employee. Some people find this quite difficult to do but often – especially where there is a clear dispute – the employee may well be expecting you to say something. It’s important that at this early stage you simply talk about the principle of coming to an agreement, rather than jumping in with an immediate offer.

Follow this up in writing – confirming that you consider your discussion a protected conversation under the Employment Rights Act. This means that any discussions will not be admissible* if things break down and you do end up with a Tribunal Claim. (*Unless in the course of the discussions you say something as stupid as “I’m only getting rid of you because you’re pregnant/gay/Muslim” etc, or try to bully or harass the individual, in which case they can be used in support of a claim). You may also want to add the words “Without Prejudice” to any letter/email although strictly speaking these words only protect lawyers.

Think about the offer you are going to make. The individual is signing away legal rights so will expect something more than their basic contractual payments. Like any negotiation, consider your opening offer and what you are prepared to go up to. Remember also that negotiations break down it may be 6-8 weeks before you can justify dismissal so you’ll be paying the person for this long anyway – so an additional cash amount might be cost-neutral. You can also think about whether there are any non-financial benefits you can offer – a good reference for example. Try to avoid thinking in emotional terms “I don’t want to give this person £££” and look at it commercially

It’s also now “expected” – though you don’t legally have to do it – that the employer will make a contribution towards the employee’s legal fees. The amount is usually fixed, but in my experience will depend on the particular solicitor – one of the advantages of the north of England is that they are often cheaper!

Finally, remember that the agreement is voluntary – you or the employee can walk away at any point and if this happens then you continue as if the discussions had never taken place. This might mean restarting a performance or disciplinary process.