Month: August 2018

Ever had that sinking feeling when one of your staff asks if they “can have a word?”   You just know they are going to tell you that something has gone wrong, or worse they have a personal issue they want to discuss with you!

When you have a difficult conversation at work you usually have to say or hear things that mean you have to manage emotions and information in a sensitive way. This could be you initiating the conversation around complaints against a member of staff or addressing poor performance, or your staff member wanting to talk to you.

Our instinct is to ask ourselves if we are the right person to have this conversation. It is easy to get things wrong so if you do not think it is not your responsibility it is often better to direct the person to the right line manager or even the HR department, or at least check with them.

If you are the right person for the staff member to talk to, Acas has some useful guidance that might help you approach the conversation in the right way, follow this link https://bit.ly/2mhCTCR . Acas says that hoping that things sort themselves out is no solution.  At best is delays the inevitable and at worst it can result in formal discussions.

If you are an employer and you don’t have an in-house HR department, at All Payrolls we have HR partners that can help you with any aspect of HR, whether you employ one person under direct payments  or are a commercial or public sector organisation employing lots of people.

Scottish Widows’ 14^th annual Retirement Report looks in detail at auto enrolment and whether this is actually helping people to save more for their retirement.  They have found that almost 2 million people who have more than one job, termed “multi-jobbers” don’t reach the minimum earnings level in any of their employments so are not getting the opportunity to opt in to Auto Enrolment schemes.

In 2017 the Department for Work and Pensions published a report which set out the analysis and findings they used for the Auto Enrolment Review 2017. One of the two major proposals in this report was to remove the lower earnings limit, which would open the door for the multi-jobbers, who are in many cases working full-time hours overall, to benefit.  The government are looking to implement this change by the mid 2020’s after discussions with stakeholders and a formal consultation.

In the meantime Scottish Widows projections show that the 1.9m multi jobbers are missing out on over £90 million of employer contributions a year which could be claimed if the earnings threshold was scrapped.

For employers there seems to be a never ending stream of new regulations especially around payroll. We are payroll experts based in Birmingham and it is our job to take away the headache of compiling the right figures for reporting and of course to make sure your employees get paid correctly and on-time.  Please contact us for a discussion about your payroll needs, for today or the future.

A research study involving 9,000 candidates in 11 counties across four continents has found that 91% of people who accept a new role will consider leaving their new job in the first month. A staggering 93% would consider leaving during their probation period.

At All Payrolls we understand the costs of recruitment. So why are employers getting it so wrong?  Let’s face it, people have been recruiting people for thousands of years so why can’t we get this right?

The study found that the reasons people leave during the first month include:

• Poor Management
• Discrepancy between the job in practice and how it was advertised
• A mismatch of corporate culture
• Lack of proper on-boarding
• They received a better job offer

The research was commissioned by specialist recruiter Robert Half. Their UK Managing Director, Matt Weston said “In today’s market top candidates are receiving multiple job offers and therefore have a host of criteria beyond pure remuneration.”  He continued “….Recruitment is a two-way street.  It starts with providing candidates an efficient and timely recruitment experience and extends throughout the on-boarding process to ensure new hires are motivated, engaged and quickly contributing to the business.”

It would seem that a lot of the reasons people leave are down to poor processes and communication within the recruiting company. At All Payrolls we process the payroll for thousands of individuals.  We have an accuracy guarantee.  We can only offer this because our processes and communications internally and with our clients is second to none.  Can you say that for your business?  If you look dis-organised and departments are competing with each other, rather than working together, no wonder good candidates get disillusioned very quickly and move on.  It is important for hiring companies to think holistically about their recruitment processes across their whole company.

If you would like to know more about our accuracy guarantee contact our team of payroll professionals at our Birmingham head office.

Scrivens Ltd implemented a policy that if an employee left the company within a period of time they would have to repay a proportion of their training costs. You could say, ‘fair enough’ and many companies have a similar policy.

However, the Employment Tribunal awarded the claimant, Ms Walworth a total of £11,000 in compensation for loss of earnings and injury to feelings after they upheld her claim of discrimination.

The employee advised Scrivens that she was pregnant and that she would go on maternity leave in April 2016. The HR Department wrote to her confirming this and that the training repayment period under her training agreement would be ‘paused’ for the period of maternity leave.  It is this ‘pause’ that Ms Walworth believed was discriminatory and this is what the tribunal upheld.  Whilst on maternity leave the employee informed the HR department that she may not return to work and following the response from the company that she would have to give 12 weeks’ notice and repay all of her training costs that she complained.

The Employment Tribunal held that Ms Walworth should be awarded the following compensation:

• A basic award for £2,615.36 (in respect of the claim of unfair dismissal)
• Financial losses of £4,148.50
• Compensation for Injury To Feelings £4,374.36
• Unpaid holiday pay £325.59

Here is a link to the full judgement https://bit.ly/2uzIyI0

The payroll function we carry out for our clients is closely associated with the HR matters. Our payroll specialists at our Birmingham head office have a great deal of experience and we also have trusted HR partners that we work with and who work on behalf of our clients. For more information about our payroll services and HR partners please talk to us.