Law firm loses flexible working case   £40,000 payout for discrimination

New changes to the issuing of sick notes   Good news for employers and GPs

Problematic new employees   How to avoid a possible dismissal

Picasso HR team expands   

Did you know....?   

Law firm loses flexible working case

An incredible £40,000 was awarded to a former employee of Herbert Smith after a tribunal found that the law firm had unreasonably refused a request by the employee to work flexibly following her maternity leave, and subsequently they made her redundant. The tribunal found Herbert Smith guilty of sex discrimination, direct victimisation, unfair dismissal and contravening the part time workers regulations. They also ordered them to find an alternative position for the employee within the organisation.

Langton, who had worked for the company for almost 6 years returned from maternity leave in 2002 on a part time basis with a provision to work from home 1 day per week. She came under increasing pressure from her new line manager during September 2003 to revert back to working ‘core hours’ being told there would be ‘no flexibility’ for her to continue with her current working pattern including the day at home. He explained that her childcare responsibilities were not the concern of Herbert Smith and that her future with the company depended on whether she was ‘planning on having more children’. Langton complained about her treatment in a grievance and lodged proceedings under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. Interestingly, soon after this complaint was lodged, Langton was dismissed by way of redundancy; she was pregnant at the time.

For more information regarding flexible working and the work/life balance, contact Picasso HR for creative ideas and procedures.

New changes to the issuing of sick notes

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) recently announced proposals that will radically change the approach to administering sick certificates in the future. The new proposals will allow non-medical professionals such as physiotherapists, nurses and chiropractors to issue certificates - a responsibility previously reserved for General Practitioners. The proposals are due to take effect from April 2006.

The proposals work on the principle that in recognised situations other professionals are able to make a more accurate diagnosis of the medical condition than a GP who often only sees a patient when issuing a certificate. They are better equipped with information concerning the patients’ history and understand specifically what is required to support recovery. Undoubtedly this move will please GPs particularly as research into this area revealed that they face pressure to provide sick notes for fear that they could face a charge of negligence if they don’t.

This is good news for employers too, as it provides the employer with the confidence that their employee’s illness has been assessed appropriately and that ultimately they will receive the most suitable care. It will also make it harder for individuals to feign illness or injury and deceive the GP into providing a sick note, a significant move in the right direction considering nearly 168 million days were lost due to illness during 2004 with almost 14% of which were a result of 'pulling sickies'.

If you are experiencing a high level of absence due to sickness you will find that introducing some simple procedures will help to reduce this significantly – every business is different so to discuss an approach tailored to suit the individual needs of your organisation contact: Picasso HR Ltd 01473 890037.

Problematic new employees

Despite using a robust recruitment and selection process, there may be times when a new employee does not meet the necessary standards of performance. Current employment legislation means that employees cannot claim unfair dismissal before they have 1 years service, (although it is worth mentioning that this does not apply to certain claims for discrimination) but you need to balance making a hasty decision to dismiss an employee against trying to realise your investment in the recruitment process and being a fair and reasonable employer.

It is obviously important to give people a chance to settle and new employees will need extra help and guidance in the early days, but where things do go wrong you need to deal with the problems quickly and fairly.

Setting standards up front during the induction process and putting objectives in place will ensure the employee can be in no doubt about what is expected of them.

Have a formal review meeting with your new employee after a few weeks. This meeting should be a two way discussion and will enable you to collect your employee’s initial impressions and understand how they feel they are doing. You should:

• Discuss their performance and provide your feedback.
• If there are problems, make it clear where the employee is falling short and check for any underlying issues or mitigating circumstances.
• Are there any skills gaps that need to be addressed?
• Do they need some additional support to help bring them up to standard?

Set targets for improvements and clearly state again what the expected levels of performance are. Outline what support measures or training will be provided to help and set a reasonable timeframe to review progress. This needs to be sufficient time to demonstrate an improvement but should not be overly long.

Further review meetings will be necessary and the aim should be to bring the person up to standard quickly. But if it becomes clear that they will be unable to meet the required standards, their employment may have to be terminated.

For further advice about dealing with performance problems, please contact Picasso HR on 01473 890037.

Picasso HR team expands

We would like to introduce Amanda Baumguertel who joined the Picasso HR team in July as an HR Adviser.

Amanda is a qualified HR professional and joins the team from British Telecom where she worked as an HR generalist. Her role at BT meant responsibility for an account of around 600 people and also involvement in a number of specialist areas including career development, performance management, recruitment and selection, and absence management.

Did you know....?

A survey conducted by BT Home Computing has revealed that benefits such as healthcare and extra holiday have overtaken company cars as the most popular employee benefits. According to the survey of 100 employers and 400 staff revealed that only 20% of employees would place a company car at the top of their benefit list.

That UK business face direct losses of £2.4 billion a year to computer criminals according to research conducted by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit. The research revealed that computer crime has increased over the last 12 months with nearly 90% of companies experiencing at least one incident of computer crime, up from 83% last year. For support concerning Intranet/Internet matters please contact Picasso HR 01473 890037.

The information in this newsletter is of a general nature and is not a substitute for professional advice. You are recommended to obtain specific professional advice before you take any action.

For further information, advice or assistance on any of the matters raised in this newsletter please contact Picasso HR on 01473 890037.

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