Tag Archive for: redundancy

Rising Prices and Risk of Recession – How Can You Be Prepared?

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The Bank of England’s warning of a ‘sharp economic slowdown’ has sparked further fears that the UK could be plunged into recession.

The Government’s announcement of a review into how it can best support a thriving future UK labour market is welcome news, but with the two stage review taking place over spring and summer, will that support come quick enough?

As the UK continues to see a contraction across all sectors of the economy, we consider what steps employers should take regarding its staffing, to deal with the impact of a downturn.

Review Future Plans

It is important to look ahead to commitments you’ve made to establish if they are critical, and if they are, whether or not they can be deferred until you have some certainty.

For your employees this might mean reviewing training activities to ensure future relevance, and staffing plans, considering whether a recruitment freeze is an option.

Employers do need to ensure though that they consider how they will not only weather a recession but also respond in the aftermath – halting all training and recruitment may mean you’re not skilled and fully resourced to respond to future challenges.

Talk to Your Employees

It’s a balancing act for employers to ensure they keep employees appropriately updated on business plans, but without creating alarm and seeing your key staff jump ship. Key to this is relevant and meaningful communication.

You may not have all the answers or any fully formed plans, but communicating that it is on your radar and that you will share information when you can will help to gain trust and provide reassurance. It may encourage employees to review and consider their personal circumstances and avoid over committing. It can also provide clarity if you do decide to take steps such as putting training or recruitment on hold, avoiding your staff feeling even more frustrated and concerned. 

Follow a Fair Process

In the unfortunate event that redundancies are necessary, ensure that you follow a fair process to facilitate genuine and meaningful consultation that is sensitive and respectful to those affected. If you’ve communicated about your business plans appropriately, it should help staff to see this response is less of a knee-jerk reaction.

You need to prepare in order to run a process smoothly – use the time now to get clarity on your staffing numbers and commitments, making sure to consider all staff who may need to be involved such as fixed term contractors and temporary staff. 

For specialist HR support with any of these issues, please contact Sue Meehan Boyes in our team on 07384 468797.

What Are the Latest Employment Law Changes in April 2022?

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There are several employment law changes coming into force in April 2022.

National Minimum Wage Rises

From 1 April the national minimum wage will increase. You should ensure that your hourly wage rates of your employees meet the new threshold in your April salary payments.

  • Increase from £8.91 to £9.50 for workers aged 23 and over (the national living wage).
  • Increase from £8.36 to £9.18 for workers aged 21 or 22.
  • Increase from £6.56 to £6.83 for workers aged 18 to 20.
  • Increase from £4.62 to £4.81 for workers aged under 18 who are no longer of compulsory school age.
  • Increase from £4.30 to £4.81 for apprentices under 19, or over 19 and in the first year of the apprenticeship.

Gender Pay Gap Reporting

The deadline for gender pay gap reporting is 30 March for public-sector employers and 4 April for private and voluntary sector employers. You can submit your report through the GOV.UK website and you should also ensure you publish it on your organisation’s website. Read further government guidance.

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Family-Related Pay and Sick Pay

The statutory minimum rate for maternity, adoption, paternity and parental bereavement pay increases to £156.66 per week from 3 April 2022.

The statutory sick pay rate increases to £99.35 per week from 6 April 2022.

You may wish to review your policies to check that you have amended these pay rates in line with these changes.

IR35 Compliance

The grace period for enforcement of non-compliance to IR35 rules ends on 6 April 2022. Organisations should review their IR35 compliance and ensure they update their status determinations where necessary. As a reminder, employers are now responsible for determining a contractors’ employment status to assess if IR35 applies. If IR35 does apply, the employer is deemed to be their employer for tax and national insurance purposes. Find out more information on IR35.

Right to Work Checks

There has been an extension to the Home Office online right to work check process, until 30 September 2022. You can continue to use the online right to work service and make document checks remotely until this date.

British and Irish citizens, who are currently unable to evidence their right to work through the online service will be able to start using the new digital identity checking service online which is due to be introduced 6 April 2022. This new service will use Identification Document Validation Technology (IDVT) providers who will carry out checks on behalf of employers.

Statutory Redundancy Pay

From 6 April 2022 the weekly statutory redundancy pay for employees with two years’ service will increase to £571.

For specialist support or advice on how these changes may affect you and your employees, please get in touch with Helen Couchman in our team on 07799 901 669. 

Rise in Redundancies – Ensure Your Processes Are Fair

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Whilst the Government’s furlough scheme may have staved off redundancies for the short term, it is highly likely that we will begin to see another rise in redundancies across various industries as we head into the New Year.

Unlike an American CEO who recently decided to make 900 people redundant over a Zoom call, employers in England and Wales must follow a fair redundancy process for individuals who have worked there for at least two years by the time their job ends.

There will need to be at least one individual meeting with the employee before making a final redundancy decision and it’s key that you discuss the reasons behind that proposal and why the employee’s role is being considered for redundancy. You must also make the employee aware of any suitable alternative jobs that might be available, and actively engage with them to see whether a redundancy dismissal can be avoided.

If you have your own internal redundancy process, this should be followed. If you don’t have your own process in place, it might be best to get some support to guide you through the process. If the redundancy could be seen as ‘unfair’, you may be putting your business at risk of unfair dismissal claims.

For guidance and support with fair redundancy processes, please contact Simon Martin on 07384 813076.

Podcast – Redundancy Support for Small Scale Redundancies

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HR Consultant, Sarah Martin, discusses how Narrow Quay HR can support smaller businesses and SMEs through redundancy process involving less than 20 redundancies

 In this podcast, we discuss:

  • planning
  • getting into the correct mindset
  • what areas we can support with

How Can We Help?

Our specialist HR consultants can help your organisation by:

  • providing support with your day to day HR issues
  • auditing your HR policies and procedures to identify problems and suggest improvements
  • training for your staff
  • practical support with consultations and other HR projects
  • carrying out investigations into grievances, disciplinaries and other matters

Related Resources

If you require specialist HR support relating to workplace investigations, please contact HR Consultant Sarah Martin on 07799 136091.

Podcast – Redundancy Support for Collective Consultation Redundancies

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HR Consultant, Simon Martin, discusses the support Narrow Quay HR can offer to organisations going through a redundancy process, including those dealing with a collective consultation process.

 In this podcast, we discuss:

  • what constitutes a collective consultation process?
  • support we can provide throughout the process

How Can We Help?

Our specialist HR consultants can help your organisation by:

  • providing support with your day to day HR issues
  • auditing your HR policies and procedures to identify problems and suggest improvements
  • training for your staff
  • practical support with consultations and other HR projects
  • carrying out investigations into grievances, disciplinaries and other matters

Related Resources

If you require specialist HR support relating to workplace investigations, please contact HR Consultant Simon Martin on 07384 81376.

How Narrow Quay HR Can Assist You with Your Redundancy Process

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Between us, the team at Narrow Quay has decades of experience of advising on and supporting organisations going through redundancy processes.

In the current economic climate we are increasingly being called on for assistance and I wanted to share with you how we can assist your organisation in these difficult times.

Alongside this blog, we have put together a couple of podcasts discussing the sort of things you should be considering when you are contemplating making some redundancies, one aimed at small-to medium-sized businesses and one aimed at larger organisations and we recommend you listen to these too.

If you decide to go ahead with making redundancies then we can support you at every stage. Based on our experience in assisting employers with redundancy processes, we have found that the following options are the ones that employers want. Depending on whether or not you have any existing HR resource, or the size and experience of your in-house HR team, you may want assistance with some or all of the following. We are happy to discuss them with you and provide bespoke cost estimates.

Support with a Redundancy Process

  • Individual consultation meeting support: A fair redundancy procedure always involves a need to consult individually, regardless of whether you are also obliged to collectively consult with your staff (more on this below).We can support you with those individual consultation meetings. We can either conduct the individual meetings for you, meeting with staff virtually or in person, or, alternatively we can provide a support role and attend the meetings alongside someone from your organisation. If we are attending with someone then our role is to chiefly assist with guidance on the process that needs to be followed.
  • Calculating entitlements: We can assist with calculation of statutory redundancy payments, notice and holiday pay.
  • Preparing the documentation: We can prepare timelines, scripts for all the meetings, take notes of the individual and collective consultation meetings and draft letters to send to the affected employees before and after their consultation meetings.
  • HR support: We can provide HR support throughout the consultation process, being a point of contact, answering any questions, helping to keep the process on track, identifying if any legal support is needed and generally being your HR support and sounding board.

Larger-Scale Redundancies with Collective Consultation

If you are proposing to dismiss 20 or more employees in a 90-day period, you will need to run a collective consultation process as part of your redundancy exercise.

In addition to the above, we can also assist with the following:

  • Appointing employee representatives: If you need to elect employee representatives, we can draft the necessary communications to go out to staff to take you through the election process and can assist with any queries which arise out of this process.
  • Training: We can provide training for employee representatives, taking them through the requirements of the role and the process to be followed in a consultation. We can also provide a similar session for managers if required.
  • Timetabling: We can assist with setting up the consultation process, including helping to prepare a timetable, drafting the communications to employee representatives and generally keeping the process on track.
  • Collective consultation meeting support: We can attend both face-to-face and/or virtual collective consultation meetings to provide HR support and guidance. We can take a note of what is said at the collective consultation meetings. We can also work with you to prepare a Q&A document based on the questions that have been raised and circulate that to the employee representatives.

This is a short guide to outline the help that Narrow Quay HR can offer if you are undergoing a redundancy consultation process.

Related Resources

If you would like to explore the support we can offer in more detail please contact Simon Martin on 07384 813 076, Sarah Martin on 07799 136091, or Caitlin Anniss on 07909 683938.

Webinar – Collective Consultations

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How do you appropriately manage the process of a redundancy situation? Narrow Quay HR Consultant, Sarah Martin provides practical advice for dealing with difficult conversations

Included in this webinar:

  • What is a redundancy situation?
  • What is collective consultation and how does it work?
  • Interaction between individual and collective consultation
  • Who are the employees representatives?
  • How do notice and redundancy payments work?
Watch Our Webinar

How Can We Help?

Our specialist HR consultants can help your organisation by:

  • providing support with your day to day HR issues
  • auditing your HR policies and procedure to identify problems and suggest improvements
  • training for your staff
  • practical support with consultations and other HR projects
  • carrying out investigations into grievances, disciplinaries and other matters

Related Resources

If you require any HR support in relation to dealing with a redundancy situation, please contact our HR Consultant, Sarah Martin on 07799 136 091.