Employee Relations

Managing employee relations in a legally compliant and comprehensive way can be confusing and complex. Trying to cope on your own brings significant risks which can end up costing your company dearly. You need access to reliable advice that you can act on when issues arise, which can be with any aspect of employee relations.

 

Examples of employee relations issues are:

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• Workplace Conflicts

  • Disagreements and disputes between employees happen all the time. Often, these are the results of ineffective communication. An HR department or employee relations manager will never please everyone, but if frequent conflicts come up, low morale is building, and the issues will only get worse unless resolved.​

 

• Workplace Bullying​

  • When a simple conflict escalates into bullying, you’ve got a big problem. The consequences of letting this take place on the job are low employee performance, increased absenteeism, and bad brand reputation (not to mention legal action). Take bullying reports seriously and launch investigations when necessary.

 

• Workplace Safety​

  • If accidents are happening in the workplace, an employer may be held responsible for any injuries, medical leave, and lost wages. On top of that, the company will suffer from the high cost of lowered production. Promoting and immediately addressing workplace safety issues is a top employee relations concern.

 

• Working Hours​

  • When employees constantly complain that their hours are not getting counted correctly (or if managers suspect dishonest hour tracking from employees), it’s time to get into the details of what is going on. Wage and hour violations break the law and need to be taken seriously.

 

• Pay Rise Requests​​​

  • Declining or ignoring pay raise requests is just asking for disgruntled employees and high turnover rates. Even if you do offer fair wages, fully consider each request to see if there is room to offer a raise (or other perks instead).

 

​Making decisions is not always simply about what’s legal. Razor's legally qualified team will listen to you when you are looking to make business changes and minimise risk by helping you stay on the right side of the law, whilst achieving your end goals. We will provide you with personal, professional, and most importantly, correct advice, whatever the issue. 

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Our expertise covers:

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• Contracts and contractual variations

  • Your rights as an employer and what you expect from your employees need to be set out in the contract of employment. Successful management of your team starts with a contract that’s fit for purpose. We’ll review what you currently have in place and produce contracts tailored to your business.

 

• Redundancy

  • Making redundancies is one of the most difficult decisions an employer may make and ensuring that your approach is fair and compliant with the law will avoid claims of discrimination and unfair dismissal. We’ll assist you with fairly selecting and effectively consulting with your employees. Nobody wants to make redundancies but with our help you can at least ensure that you are dealing with your team as sensitively and fairly as possible.

 

• Appraisals & Reviews

  • In order for your organisation to be the best it can be, your employees need to understand the part they play in the business. Effective appraisals and reviews embed a culture where you are demonstrating how important your people are to you; and where the employee has responsibility for the continuous improvement of their performance in the role, their own skills, behaviours and overall contributions to the business. We’ll develop a bespoke appraisal and review system that measures the key performance indicators relevant to your organisation and enables you to drive performance – realising a commercial benefit.

 

• Employee Engagement

  • Employee engagement strategies are about creating an environment in which engagement is more likely to flourish. Essentially 'employee engagement strategy' means increasing the likelihood that employees will establish a positive emotional connection with your organization. We can help you to put in place effective engagement strategies which empower you as business owners and also make your employees voices feel heard.

 

• Performance Management

  • In an ideal world, all employees would perform excellently, all the time. In reality you are likely to require improved performance from elements of your team, most of the time. Linked with your appraisal and review process, performance management is all about helping people achieve the most they can and we’re experts at helping all kinds of professionals improve. Occasionally, improvements aren’t achieved, and we will support you with the process of terminating contracts in these instances.

 

• Investigations, disciplinary & dismissal

  • Even when you work towards creating a productive and happy workforce there can still be problems, and the only course of action will be to begin disciplinary procedures. We’ll be there to advise on the process to follow or will help you conduct various aspects of the process, to ensure that the decisions you reach are fair, objective and legally compliant to avoid claims of discrimination or unfair dismissal. Please visit our Workplace Investigations page for further information.

 

• Grievance

  • Employees can raise concerns or grievances about any aspect of their working life at any point during their contract of employment and following the correct procedure and dealing with any complaints in the correct way can avoid issues escalating. We’ll be there to advise on the process to follow or will help you conduct various aspects of the process to avoid claims of discrimination or constructive dismissal.

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• Sickness & absence management

  • Most absence is genuine but if not managed properly it can cause significant issues for a business especially small one. Managing absence due to sickness requires effective people management policies, which may be helped by a focus on employee well-being. We can offer support with identifying the causes of absence, absence monitoring and management, attendance, and sickness. We also provide guidance on managing long-term illness, returns to work, fit notes, and sick pay.

 

Contact our Razor HR Consulting Department for a free consultation and more information about how we can provide reliable advice, no matter what the issue, giving you the confidence to make fair and legal decisions that help you drive your business forward.