Rebecca Reflects: Goughs Solicitors’ head of employment Rebecca Dennis explains some common employment law and HR issues

Rebecca Dennis, head of employment at Goughs Solicitors, lists the top 10 tips you need for employment law and HR in your business.

1. Speak. Don’t be afraid to speak to employees and to speak privately about difficult topics. You don’t need to send a formal invitation to any employee to ask them to come to an informal meeting and employees don’t have the right to be accompanied to such a meeting. 
2. Listen. Whatever the topic, however contentious it might be and regardless of your opinion on the subject, always listen. There are always other views, even in the most obvious factual situations. Information is power.
3. Trust your policies and procedures. If they are up to date and properly deployed, they will give your business the result it needs and minimise the litigation risk.
4. Embrace digital audio recording for formal meetings. It removes the possibility of human error and means that notetakers are not required. AI software can then take the strain with transcription. There is nothing like a verbatim transcript for absolute clarity.
5. Be vigilant. If you are thinking about dismissal, just take a look around at the bigger picture. Is there personal mitigation that could justify retaining the employee? Identify it and explore it. You can always reject it on a reasoned basis. Look at your investigation? Is anything missing? Have you obtained all the relevant information? Failing to take the time to do this could render a dismissal unfair.
6. Be reasonable. Always remember that any decision you make about an employee has to be based on reason and reasonableness. This means that every part of any process needs to be carefully constructed and executed.
7. Be consistent and transparent. Recruit, promote, dismiss and discipline for permissible reasons and record everything. Your records will help disprove any allegation of less favourable treatment based on a protected characteristic.
8. Be open-minded. The most frequently encountered event in the life of any HR department is a grievance. They may be spurious. They may be used to divert attention away from misconduct or to interrupt a planned disciplinary process. Ignore that and focus on the grievance. Assume it is truthful and made in good faith and give it the attention it deserves.
9. Remember the Subject Access Request. These are part and parcel of our data protection legislative landscape. Disgruntled employees are using them as a device to obtain disclosure of personal material from employers. Avoid using pejorative or critical language about employees in casual correspondence.
10. Talk! It’s where we began. Businesses with good track records in stable employee relations have meaningful appraisals, active supervision, effective mentoring and intimate 1-2-1s in place. 

Rebecca Dennis has specialised in employment law for many years and now leads the employment department at Goughs. She provides consistent and risk aware advice to employers and her experience includes both contentious and non-contentious work. Rebecca’s professional background is unusual – she worked for more than 20 years as a barrister providing legal advice, drafting and advocacy for her clients and, more recently, provided specialist trouble-shooting services on employment law and employee relations at a leading international HR outsourcing company. She has a reputation as a pragmatist and problem solver.