We’re not your average HR consultancy. Led by Sam Swinstead, a plain-talking HR professional with over 20 years of experience, we focus on sensible, practical advice that gets results.
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Are you considering introducing a workplace vaccination policy? Have you even spoken to your employees about their coronavirus vaccines yet? Maybe you’ve seen them post about having it on social media but chances are you haven’t had a conversation about it. A survey...
We’re sure you were glued to the news last week waiting to know what will and won’t be allowed for our summer holidays this year so we’ve pulled together just a couple of useful resources for you with things you should be aware of when it comes to your employee travel...
Have you noticed a change in the out of office messages you receive? Gone are robotic justifications of why you cannot reply immediately to an email, with an offering of a number of alternative contact numbers and email addresses so that actually you ARE constantly...
Right to work checks will have to be in person again as of 17 May 2021. Of the many things that have changed the way we work in the last year some are starting to return to the pre Covid way of doing things and right to work checks are one such task. In the remote...
One thing the events of 2020 have shown us is that the answer to ‘do small businesses really need HR support?’ is ‘Yes, they absolutely do!’ Probably not in house and not full time but definitely a presence, maybe in the shape of, hmmmm, I don’t know, someone like us,...
One of the good things to come out of lockdown for those of us that do still a daily commute to work is that it seems to be a lot quieter out there, which helps reduce the time we spend on the road. But what about those of us who are now working remotely? Without the...
We are sure you will have seen the news today about the new Covid Job Support Scheme that will come into effect on 1 November. There is as yet no Govt Guidance on the Gov.uk covid webpages but we have received a copy of the factsheet and it sets out the details we...
Over the summer, if you squinted, it looked and felt like things were slowly returning back to a more recognisable state but unfortunately as we are all aware cases of Covid 19 seem to be on the rise. Localised restrictions have been put in place for many parts of the...
Over communicating, you can have too much of a good thing! Can you remember a time before endless video calls? Ahhhhhh the heady days of February 2020! Family quizzes, pub quizzes, kitchen parties and virtual music festivals in the garden were the things that got me...
As more employees start to return to the workplace we thought the following track and trace guidance may be useful: This link gives you guidance on Test & Trace in the workplace: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-workplace-guidance There is guidance...
We all have stories about our own experiences with horrible bosses, but what is it that makes them bad leaders? Horrible bosses aren’t horrible people, most of the time, they just lack certain skills themselves. BambooHR asked 1,000 UK-based employees what traits...
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has helped many businesses since March but we now know that it will be coming to an end in October and unfortunately that means that we are starting to talk about redundancy more often as business are starting to think about what...
Work-life balance is not our favourite term really, especially when you’re the owner of a business. Work and life come hand in hand but recent months any kind of balance has become much harder to achieve. Business owners have also had to adjust to working from home,...
Summer 2020, school is out and its very nearly August, for many that would usually mean we are about to jet off to some far flung places to enjoy time with family to relax and recharge. Unfortunately, summer 2020 plans have had to be put on hold for lots of us, but...
Employee Burnout & Presenteeism How are you? Really? This is a question you should be asking your employees on a regular basis? Burnout has doubled since lockdown began. Burnout is categorised as depleting energy or exhaustion, mental distancing or negativity to...
Remote working, home working, flexible working, virtual meetings, what will the future of work look like? It’s probably fair to say that recent events have changed the way many of us will work, forever. Where working from home never seemed possible before over night...
So whether you loved it or loathed it, thought it was clear or confusing, we have now had the first signs of some easing restrictions we’ve been living and working under. This is still of course a moveable feast, and for many of you there is an element of judgement...
How effective is your remote management during lockdown and isolation? 5 weeks in, at least 2 to go, how are we all holding up? Thinking about it, for me, the last 5 weeks have been a bit of a blur and have passed pretty quickly. Days have seamlessly run into each...
I appreciate that for many of you there are still more questions than answers but for those who had to make some tough decisions pretty quickly I think the initial furloughing is sorted, and working from home is in place. Many small businesses seem to be receiving the...
We don’t want to jump on the Coronavirus scaremonger bandwagon & we appreciate that the infection figures are still low in the UK but we do think that is worth spending some time planning what you will do if the coronavirus becomes more widespread in the UK or if...
7 February has been given the weird holiday of Working Naked Day. It was created by Lisa Kanarek after she left the corporate world to work from home, this was over 20 years ago when working from home wasn’t as common as it is today. The day is a celebration of the...
Do you allow your employees to have pets at work? We have 2 office dogs, they are so much a part of vivoHR that they were part of our last job advert! We had to make sure that whoever ended up being our colleague was happy to be greeted by 2 excited fur-buddies each...
By the end of 2020 Generation Z will make up almost a quarter of the worldwide work force and if you thought that the Gen Y Millennials were rocking the boat you aint seen nothing yet! Gen Z are digital natives, they don’t know a world without smartphones and social...
Termination of employment unfortunately happens, even after following all the rules and being the perfect employer there are many reasons an employee may say – ‘so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye’. When an employee resigns ensure that their reasons are of no...
“There’s no I in team” – in our view this is a cringeworthy statement that gets bandied about with no real thought for what it means – in fact it contradicts so much of what we know is important in creating and managing successful teams. John Adair, a guru if there...
How do you get the best from your staff? You pay their salary so you want them to do their very best for you all the time they are at work right? We’re constantly amazed by the number of employers who don’t give that much thought as to how to get the best from their...
So your business is growing & you need more people in it to get all the work done, it’s a daunting thought and you might not have employed anyone before, we are here to give you our recruitment top tips to help make things a little easier. The first job is to...
