As an employment lawyer, companies often only seek advice from me once things have already gone wrong. I always tell these clients that prevention is better than cure, and good HR advice can save you substantial time, effort, and costs in the long run.  Before I give a shameless plug to our Solicitor’s Retainer Package (see below), I wanted to go through the top 10 mistakes I see businesses make time and time again, in the hopes that you can avoid them:

1. Failing to use probationary periods – almost all contracts will include a probationary period (or at least they should!).  The purpose of these is to assess suitability for the role, because there’s only so much you can tell from an interview.  Unfortunately, many employees are not actively managed in their probationary period, leading to staff who have ‘never been a good fit’ remaining in their role, and becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to manage out.

2. Giving poor inductions – along the same lines as above, if you don’t have a proper induction process, you can’t expect employees to know your policies, procedures, systems etc.  A proper induction will save an employee a lot of time ‘getting up to speed’ and allow you to better assess their performance early on.  The reason many bad employees make it through their probationary period is because they were given leeway because they were ‘new’ and ‘still learning the ropes’.  Giving thorough inductions and early training will allow you to assess whether an employee is just finding their footing or whether there are genuine concerns over their fitness for the role.

3. Failing to use performance improvement plans properly – the true purpose of a performance improvement plan (PIP) is exactly what it says on the tin i.e. put in place a plan to help an employee improve.  Used properly, a PIP can be used to identify problems early and help employees to improve, so that the issue no longer exists.  Unfortunately PIPs have become synonymous with ‘managing out’ and many businesses only use them to try and get rid of staff.  This gives them a bad name with employees too, who will see a PIP as the beginning of the end and effectively give up, which only serves to compound the problem.  By using PIPs as needed, for their intended purpose and communicating your intentions with your staff, PIPs can be used to have a happy and productive workforce.

4. Not giving honest appraisals – I cannot tell you how many times I am asked how an employer can dismiss a ‘terrible’ member of staff and have a conversation which goes almost exactly like this:

Client: I have this member of staff.  They’ve always been bad at their job but it’s coming on top now and they need to go.

Me: how long have they been there and have performance issues been raised before?

Client: 5 years and yes, we’ve mentioned it several times

*client proceeds to send me 5 years of ‘outstanding’ appraisals*

In short, you cannot expect staff to improve if they don’t know there’s a problem.  A dismissal for poor performance when the employee has been told they’re ‘excellent’ at the job is always going to be difficult – and may well lead to a claim for unfair dismissal.

5. Not doing exit interviews – if you’re losing staff, especially if you’re losing a lot of staff, exit interviews can be valuable in identifying issues and trends.  It may that your salaries no longer match the market average, or you’ve got difficult personalities causing others to leave.  However, you’re probably not going to get that information if you don’t ask.  Despite the valuable information which can be gleaned from an exit interview, many businesses don’t do them.

6. Not managing sickness absence – frequent sickness absence can be a huge issue for many employers, but it’s often a sign of something else going on rather than just an employee having a poor immune system.  Frequent sickness absence can be caused by anything from stress to an employee experiencing domestic violence.  Conducting proper sickness absence procedures including return to work interviews and occupational health assessments can help to identify and manage those issues early on – avoiding bigger problems down the line.

7. Not actively managing holidays - in almost any business you will have some employees who book their full allowance for the year at the earliest opportunity and those who pride themselves on never taking holiday.  Both can be problematic.  An employee who books off the entire school holidays every year (or Christmas as is usually the case) may be preventing others from taking holiday.  First come first served is fine, but perhaps not if the same people are always first.  At the other end of the scale, employees who never take holiday are often stressed, overworked, and unproductive.  Both situations should be actively managed by appropriate holiday policies.

8. Forgetting the ‘human element’ – a huge reason people leave workplaces is because of the ‘culture’.  I often hear employees describe their workplaces as ‘toxic’.  Culture is something difficult to define and even more difficult to manage.  However deciding on the culture that you want and actively working to ensure that your business embodies that can be one of the single most beneficial things you can do for your business.

9. Not using job descriptions – most employees will only ever receive a job description when they join a business, but roles and responsibilities change over time.  By keeping job descriptions under review you can ensure that everyone knows where they stand, whose responsibilities are whose, and what the company’s expectations of them are.  This can help avoid workplace conflict and manage performance issues.

10. Failing to provide management training  - the truth of the matter is that most people are not natural managers.  Most managers get into their positions by being promoted for their job-related skills and experience, rather than their people management skills.  Most of the problems above stem from managers not wanting to ‘interfere’ or ‘be mean’ but that’s not helpful in the long term.  Investing in ‘soft skills’ such as management can help your managers improve their skills and avoid a number of workplace issues.  Good management also retains staff long term.  ‘Good people leave bad managers’ is a cliché for a reason.

The overall theme of the above is probably ‘active management’.  If I had to sum up the one biggest mistake employers make, it is that they don’t actively manage situations before they become issues.  This often leads to huge amounts of time and money being spent ‘firefighting’.  The reason for this is because employers and managers are usually unaware of their rights and obligations, and tend to shy away from complex issues (such as personality clashes and sickness absence).  Taking proper advice at an early stage can assist (told you the shameless plug for our retainer package was coming….).  With our solicitor’s retainer package, you can be confident calling to get advice from a qualified solicitor – knowing that the price will be a fixed, competitive amount.  

Should you have any queries about the issues raised in this article, or on any employment related matter, please contact our expert Arvin Sandhu by email or on 01494 893 542.