Traditionally January can mean personnel changes for many businesses – it’s often a time when employees seek new opportunities and businesses kick start their hiring plans. Whether you are looking to hire to replace a leaver or are initiating a planned recruitment round, what are some key things your business needs to know?
Handling resignations
If an employee resigns it’s important to handle the situation appropriately. In a straightforward case of an employee providing a written resignation, giving the appropriate notice and there are no issues, it will usually simply be a case of accepting the resignation in writing and planning for their departure. For example, if an employee has enjoyed their time at your business but is leaving as they want a career change / found a job with a higher salary. If this happens in your business, please get in touch as we can help you with an appropriate letter.
Not all situations are straightforward, for example if an employee has raised a complaint on or before their resignation or perhaps you are unsure if they have resigned because they have just stopped attending work and haven’t contacted you or they have walked out, you should get in touch for specific advice on the facts of your case as other action is likely to be needed.
Setting up for recruitment success
Whether your recruitment round is reactive or pro-active, if it’s been a while since you last recruited a good first step is to check that your process is appropriate and is a good fit for your business and the role(s) you are looking to fill.
In particular:
- Think about the amount of time and energy that will realistically need to be invested in recruiting and plan appropriately. This will not only help the process to go more smoothly, enable you to give applicants reasonable expectations of the process (and timescales involved) but also support managers to balance their day to day responsibilities alongside recruiting.
- An appropriate and well designed recruitment process will increase the likelihood of safely attracting and selecting the best candidate for the job. Whilst it can be tempting to rush a recruitment process or cut corners, particularly if there is urgency to recruit, this can cause problems in the long run or in some cases expose a business to unnecessary risk. In our experience, one aspect of the recruitment process that can sometimes be wrongly viewed as dispensable is record keeping – bear in mind that if your recruitment decisions are challenged, you will need to be able to evidence that you have acted correctly so make sure you keep appropriate records.
- Be alert to any potential discrimination issues throughout your recruitment process. This means ensuring that your job adverts are non-discriminatory, you ask only the necessary job related questions during the interview and that you treat all applicants fairly, irrespective of any protected characteristics such as race or pregnancy for example. Remember, that you are under an obligation to make reasonable adjustments to prevent a disabled applicant from being put at a substantial disadvantage. This can mean for example making reasonable adjustments to the interview process or arrangements.
The induction process is a powerful tool
Implementing a good induction process can have real benefits for your business. It can amongst other things help an employee to settle in fast by understanding what is expected of them in terms of performance and conduct, embed them in the team, familiarise them with workplace rules, practices and procedures as well as identifying any specific training needs.
Bear in mind that an appropriate and effective induction process has a role to play in assisting businesses in demonstrating compliance with the new sexual harassment preventative duty. When it comes to harassment of a non-sexual nature, it may also help a business to defend such a claim if one arises, for example a complaint of harassment related to religion. Having appropriate sexual harassment and harassment policies in place, effectively communicating these and appropriately training all employees are some of the key anti-harassment steps required for businesses.
New starter not working out? Don’t despair…
It happens. Sometimes despite a business’s best efforts during a recruitment process you can be left disappointed, in our experience when this occurs it’s commonly down to poor performance or a conduct issue. If you are concerned a new hire or an employee with short service (under two years’ service) isn’t working out the good news is that you may be able to exit them from your business without needing to follow the usual procedures first, making it quicker and easier for your business to move on.
Whether a quick ‘short service’ dismissal is safe depends on the individual circumstances of the situation you are dealing with so it’s always important to seek specific advice before taking any action. This is because there are some claims employees can bring from day one of their employment, such as discrimination and dismissal for an automatically unfair reason, so it’s important not to get caught out.
Need help with any of the areas in this Legal Update or have another HR matter you’d like support with? Please reach out.