Russell HR Consulting

Many of you subscribe to our quarterly employment law update, Law on the Move, and we greatly appreciate all the positive feedback we get from you about it.  We thought you might like to know how we produce this product and to meet the team behind it.

Putting the material together

Firstly we have to do the research.  This is done by several members of our team, including Kate and our newest member, HR Generalist Christine Goode.  Once all the research has been compiled from IDS employment law briefs and legal research sites and any topical cases or new legislation that has come into place, Kate takes the notes and uses them to write a script.

Recording the CD

The next stage is the recording which Kate does in the studios of The Sound Factory in Woburn Sands, by our friendly sound technician, Steve Hoy – see his photo below.

Steve Hoy recording Law on the Move

Putting it all together

Meanwhile, Helen at Russell HR Headquarters takes the script and precis it into the Law on the Move factsheet which gets sent out with every copy. Helen also co-ordinates getting the artwork for the CD from our designer Caroline and sending this to Bernard at Infinitely, where the CDs are produced.

What happens next?

Once the recording has been finished and approved, Steve sends the sound clips to us and to Bernard to produce the CDs. We then collect them when they are ready a few days later.

CDs and MP3 files are then ready to send out to all our subscribers.

Baroness Scotland, who was a Home Office minister when laws were passed to fine bosses who employ illegal workers up to £10,000, has herself been fined after being found to have employed a housekeeper who was not allowed to work in the UK.  It is understood that the lady she employed arrived in the UK in 2003 on a temporary visa which has since expired.

Baroness Scotland says she hired her housekeeper in good faith and saw documents which led her to believe that she was entitled to work in this country, but failed to make and keep copies of relevant documents as required by the law. 

Unfortunately, this is not sufficient defence under the terms of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act, which states not only that employers who knowingly take on an illegal worker face a two-year prison sentence and an unlimited fine, but that those who unknowingly (our italics) take on illegal workers face a maximum £10,000 fine.

Although her housekeeper was registered for tax and national insurance prior to her being hired and the attorney general had paid tax and national insurance on her wages, a spokesman for the Immigration Advisory Service explained: ‘The perusal of a National Insurance certificate in itself is insufficient to escape a civil penalty’.

So what can you do to protect yourself in this situation, and ensure that you are following the law?

As an employer, you must ask prospective employees to produce a document, or documents, from one of two lists if you are to ensure that they can work for you legally and so that you can establish a statutory excuse (‘the excuse’) against payment of a civil penalty. Documents provided from List A establish that the person has an ongoing entitlement to work in the UK; documents from List B indicate that the applicant or employee has restrictions on their entitlement to be in the UK.

To find out more, why not call Russell HR Consulting Ltd on 0845 644 8955 or visit our website http://www.russellhrconsulting.co.uk/ for more information or download our free HR resource A guide to the prevention of illegal working.

While we always remind clients that the purpose of the disciplinary process is to encourage employees to improve, there are always those who are a bit reluctant to demonstrate a commitment to meet the employer’s standards.  And those are the ones who tend to be dismissed. We do seem to handle a lot of tough cases.

Some time ago we had to deal with a real ducker and diver of an employee.  This is what happened.  Steve, the owner of a retail outlet came to me for help.  He had been going through a redundancy process with the employees in one of his shops.  A decision had been taken and Susan had been identified as the person to be made redundant.  She had appealed against the decision to Steve.  Her father, Adrian, a law lecturer at a local college accompanied her.  At the appeal, Adrian accused Susan’s manager of bullying Susan and they submitted a grievance.

Steve was a bit stunned by this, but he agreed with Susan that she should remain at home while he investigated the grievance.  The whole process was put into abeyance and she remained on full pay throughout the next few weeks.

One of Steve’s business colleagues had recommended us, so he called us and we arranged for one of the team to carry out an investigation into the grievance.  Susan refused to attend any of the investigation meetings and in the end a report was produced without her input.  She was invited to attend a formal grievance meeting, but she failed to attend and did not give any reason for doing so.  We examined the report in her absence and concluded that there was no case to answer.  However, trading conditions had improved, so we made arrangements for her to resume work the following week.

Susan did not attend for work on the appointed day, nor did we hear from her, but her father wrote to us to say that she was so distressed and unwell that he had had to take a week off work to look after her.  We arranged a welfare meeting so that we could explore her difficulties, but she did not attend that meeting.  Even though we had offered to go to her home, she did not make contact.

At this stage, another employee came forward and gave us an email which clearly indicated that so far from languishing at home in a distressed state, Susan was having a lovely time on holiday in Morocco.

We wrote to her again, expressing our concern that she had taken this time off work without our knowledge or permission and arranged a disciplinary meeting to discuss her unauthorised absence.  Despite his earlier correspondence which clearly suggested that Susan was sick, Adrian once again intervened, saying that we had known all along she was on holiday.  We checked but there was no evidence to support his version of events.

Susan failed to attend the first date scheduled for the disciplinary meeting.  Apparently she had diarrhoea.  We rearranged the meeting to allow her time to recover from her indisposition.  Two days before the next meeting was scheduled, she wrote saying that we had misunderstood her point about the redundancy and that all she wanted was to be given her redundancy money, which she now claimed.  We wrote back saying that there was no misapprehension about the redundancy.  At the redundancy appeal meeting she and her father had complained – in the strongest possible terms -  that she had been harassed and bullied.  We pointed out that we had arranged for an investigation to take place into the grievance. At no stage, until her most recent letter, had she ever said that all she wanted was to be made redundant. 

We also pointed out that the evidence emerging from the disciplinary investigation clearly indicated that there was a case to answer and this would in any event, supercede any redundancy proceedings.  And we called her to order again.

Another sick note arrived.  Apparently, the poor girl had diarrhoea pretty badly.  However, after getting a sick note from her doctor she had managed to drive several miles from her home to our shop to deliver the note in person.  In our letter rescheduling the meeting, we noted this and also offered to come to her home if her condition suddenly deteriorated to such an extent that she couldn’t leave the house to attend the disciplinary hearing.

She didn’t reply, didn’t attend and we went through the process and dismissed her in her absence.  She didn’t appeal and we haven’t heard anything further.  She clearly was somewhat economical with the truth and so was her father, so I would be surprised if they tried their chances at a tribunal.  I would have thought that to be caught out in such blatant lies would be very discouraging, but you never know.  We’ll keep you posted …..

Get it right with Russell HR Consulting.  We can provide with you HR solutions as well as give advice about managing attendance.

Last year Kate gave a talk to a group of managers about how to manage attendance in a practical and robust way.  After the talk, a member of the audience came up and asked if she could help him with a problem.

John (not his real name) works for a small company.  Several years before, a TUPE transfer had taken place which had transferred a number of former public sector workers to their business.  As part of the transfer they had inherited Maria.

Maria, a union member, was a good worker some of the time, but she could be pretty aggressive in her language.  Colleagues were rather scared of her and several complaints of bullying had been made against her.  Upon investigation, these complaints were discovered to be well-founded; Maria responded by going off sick with stress.  Weeks gave way to months and Maria did not return to work.  She refused to see her own manager or the HR manager, nor would she allow anyone from the Company to visit her.  Indeed, she suggested that the company’s efforts to see her were making her more stressed and ill.

John didn’t know how to break the stalemate.  Kate started by drafting a letter for John to send to Maria.  The letter referred to the length of time of Maria’s absence pointing out that it was a matter of considerable concern that despite a number of efforts she had steadfastly refused to correspond or meet with the company.  The letter said that the company had tried several times to meet with her to discuss her health, understand the prognosis, what her medical advisors were saying and to establish what reasonable adjustments we could make to support her return to work.  We clearly indicated that we were more than happy to travel to her home or to a neutral location close to her home to discuss the issues. 

Maria had made it clear that she wouldn’t talk to company managers, so the letter said that they had arranged for an external HR advisor (Kate), to meet with her to have an informal chat about her health and to ascertain what further could be done to help her.

The letter was sent and Kate made the phone call.  Maria said that she would see what her union rep, Albert, thought about it.  Kate said that while she was more than happy for Maria to be supported by her rep, of course as it was an informal welfare meeting, there would be no right to be accompanied, so Albert’s role would be to support her, but as a silent witness.

Ten minutes later Kate’s phone rang again.  Albert expressed himself as willing to attend.  When reminded that his role would be as a silent witness because it was an informal meeting, Albert was not happy and expressed his view at considerable length.  He said that he felt that Maria needed him because she was so stressed. Kate said that she quite understood his concerns, but neither Albert nor Kate could make that judgement because neither were medically qualified.  However, if Albert felt there was an issue we would fully brief the doctor and get some guidance.  Eventually, Albert rang off saying darkly that he would be in touch with the Regional Coordinator.   Kate (all amiability) agreed that he should do so.

Shortly after that John received an email, saying that Albert did not feel that he could be part of a process which refused to allow him to do his job.  Instead he suggested we should carry on as before i.e. doing nothing.

Our reply thanked Albert for his input thus far, politely rejected his idea, pointed out the approved legal process for sick employees (which we proposed to follow), indicated that the company fully understood his difficulties and that we would tell Maria that he felt unable to attend.

Kate’s letter to Maria was as follows:

You may be aware that Albert has written to me declaring very clearly that he feels unable to support the process we have decided to adopt.  Since the process is one approved by the courts, we feel that it is not really appropriate for him to criticise it.  Moreover, since this is an informal welfare meeting, it is not an area where he officially has any right to participate, although we have been more than happy to accommodate him thus far.  

That being the case, we have written to him thanking him for his contribution, but he will no longer be included in the discussion, unless he feels able to support it in a constructive way.

I confess that I don’t understand why this has become such an issue.  Nothing in the conversations so far has really explained it.  Please accept my assurances that you have nothing to fear.  We simply want to understand through an informal conversation with you how matters stand and to work with you to promote your recovery.  Carrying out a welfare meeting with an employee who has been unwell for some time is purely standard practice.  In following this process you are in no way being treated differently from any other sick employee would be. 

The doctor confirmed that Maria was fit to attend the meeting and a date was set.

Albert ungrit his teeth and somewhat grumpily agreed to attend the meeting, albeit as a silent witness.  However, Albert and Maria refused to meet Kate (whom they rightly suspected of painting them neatly into a corner) and agreed to meet John after all………. John said afterwards that he had never seen Albert so quiet! 

And so the deadlock was unlocked.  Predictably, shortly after this episode, Maria asked if the company would be prepared to consider an exit package for her.  They were delighted to consider her request and agreed a very reasonable deal, which was then compromised.

The moral of this story is that tactics are everything.  Get it right with Russell HR Consulting.  We can help with HR problems as well as practical employment law training.