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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It seems that Beyoncé might have been wrong when she said 'who runs the world? Girls!' Only 4% of executive board positions in power & utility companies are held by women according to a report outlined in HR Today. Gender diversity is generally poor across...
World Cup Fever is gripping the planet and ACAS have produced guidance on how employers should handle the world cup with regard to employees wanting to watch matches. There have been similar guidance notes produced before other big sporting events in the past but to...
The Government have produced a useful guide to the changes that came into effect on 16 May regarding the checks employers should carry out when employing new staff to ensure that they are eligible to work in the UK. Whilst these regulations are concentrated on...
More holiday pay news...more expense for employers.. good news for employees! The European Court of Justice (ECJ) have ruled that holiday pay must be comparable to normal pay which therefore means it should include commission or any other elements of variable pay. The...
Do your staff do overtime? Recent tribunal rulings suggest that in the near future it will be required for holiday pay to be calculated based on actual hours worked not just on contracted or "basic" hours. This would then most likely be calculated on average hours...
Shared parental leave - great idea or just another administrative headache and potential for discrimination claims?Interesting article from Personnel Today about shared parental leave that comes into force April next year. vivoHR applaud the ideal of allowing families...
Do you work from home? Do you encourage your employees to do so? The Carbon Trust have released a report that states that increasing the number of UK employees working from home could cut costs for employers by up to £3billion and save over 3 million tonnes of carbon...
More TUPE changes took place this month. From 1 May the transferor now has 28 days, rather than 14 days, to provide the transferee all employee liability information. Employee Liability information includes names, ages, terms and conditions of employment, collective...
We had a great time presenting at the SuitAbility Conference yesterday - learnt lots ourselves as well as sharing our HR expertise in helping businesses to make Reasonable Workplace Adjustments to enable disabled employees to successfully pursue their careers and be...
vivoHR are excited to be presenting at the SuitAbility 2014 Conference on Tuesday 29th April. Sam will be talking to employers about how to successfully make reasonable workplace adjustments for employees with a disability. Come say hi if you are attending.
The National Minimum Wage is 15 years old this week and it seems that many employers are still not complying with this most basic employment right as HMRC announce that 26,000 employees received back pay totalling £4million last year. Personnel Today have published a...
All employers are required to carry out checks to ensure that their employees are legally eligible to work in the UK -this requires you to see and take copies of documents such as a birth certificate or passport, and where applicable the correct and valid visa to live...
More tribunal news... From April 2014 the Employment Tribunals have been granted the power to impose financial penalties on employers who lose at tribunal if their behaviour when committing the breach of their employees' rights is deemed to have aggravating features....
From April 2014 any employee wishing to make a tribunal claim will be required to first notify ACAS and enter into the early conciliation (EC) process with their employer. This will be an optional service in April and mandatory by the 6 May 2014. ACAS will assign a...
Tribunal Claims have reduced dramatically since the introduction of Tribunal fees. Personnel Today report that 79% fewer claims were filed in the period October to December 2013 compared with the same time the year before. Many employers will of course see this as a...
Amendments to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) Regulations 2006 come into force on the 31 January 2014. This is a complex and often misunderstood piece of legislation - whether or not these changes make it any easier for employers to...
Thanks didlaw for this update. At vivoHR we think this ruling by the EAT & the decision by ACAS to update their Disciplinary and Grievance Procedure Code Of Practice will potentially make dealing with disciplinary and grievance matters more difficult for an...
We're busy researching the latest position and legal guidance regarding the much maligned zero hours contract so that we can give all of our clients the very best advice in using this type of arrangement when it's appropriate to business needs. Do you employ staff on...
The debate over proposals to increase the sharing of maternity / paternity leave goes on - we think this over complication is likely to have the very opposite effect to the one it is trying to have. How would you manage this in your business?...
Unpaid internships will be subject to greater scrutiny by the HMRC and the Department for Business Innovation & Skills it would seem. We cautiously welcome this news as we've long felt that there are companies exploiting young workers trying to get a foot in the...
Inspired by recent feedback we've just updated the testimonials page of our website - take a look at all the great things people say about us! Do you get testimonials from your clients & if so what do you do with the once you have them? Nice feedback today "I used...
The Government has published draft legislation to make changes to the TUPE Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) Regulations, that it proposes will come into effect in January 2014. Changes were due to come into force in 2013 but these were delayed...
An HR Update from us - two topics under discussion - Possible Changes to Calculating Holiday Pay & A Change to the ACAS Code of Practice on Who Can Be A Companion at Disciplinary & Grievance Hearings....
So what are the most common reasons for disciplinary proceedings in the workplace? Research by Expert HR has the answers. Unsurprisingly (to us at least) the most common reasons for a disciplinary hearing were matters of "general misconduct" and poor performance, poor...
Changes to the TUPE Regulations (Transfer of Undertaking Protection of Employment) were due to come into force October 2013. It looks likely that the earliest we'll now see these is the start of 2014. It seems that the proposed removal of service provision changes...
Should overtime be included when calculating holiday pay? It looks like a very real possibility that this will be required if this ruling is anything to go by. More financially worrying perhaps is the fact that employees may be able to backdate claims to 1998. If your...
If you want to introduce a vehicle tracking system at work, you need to proceed with care and attention. Do it wrong, and you will alienate your staff and cause a significant drop in employee engagement, which you will want to avoid at all times. Employee Engagement...
