Flexible working is continuously on British employers’ agenda. With the increased number of requests for this type of work it is important that those employees who can work remotely should all be granted this option on the same basis.

Recently, the biggest authority in the workforce management practises – Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has described its concern about the government not pressing ahead with plans to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees.

The institute’s recent study shows the type of flexibility commonly used is quite limited.

While the use of part-time working (32 per cent), flexitime (25 per cent), home working (20 per cent) and mobile working (14 per cent) is comparatively common, other types of flexible working are hardly used. Only 5 per cent of workers use compressed hours, 2 per cent use term-time working, and 1 per cent job share.

With seven out of ten employers reporting that flexible working supports employee retention, motivation and engagement these figures should be much higher.

In addition, almost two thirds of employers believe flexible working supports their recruitment activities and half believe it has a positive impact on reducing absence as well as boosting productivity.

Nowadays, technology is here to help you introduce flexible working practices to your workplace.

New technology and communication devices are making flexible and remote working practices increasingly common solution for employers.

Siemens believes that this trend could result in the ‘anywhere employee’ – who can use modern technology to work from multiple locations – replacing the traditional office-based worker.

The communications company says that whereas in the past, staff would have difficulty managing different platforms – such as email, mobile, landline and social media – outside of the office, modern flexible and collaborative tools now mean this can be done seamlessly and irrespective of location or customers’ needs.

Providing employees with the means to work flexibly can prove a useful absence management tool for employers, allowing staff to work from home or elsewhere should they be unable to make it into the office.

This could prove particularly useful during disruptions such as the upcoming Olympics, where it has been predicted that many employees in London may struggle to get into work on time.

*Source: http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2012/05/cipd-renews-call-to-extend-flexible-working-rights.htm

With less than three months left until Olympics, the hottest subject amongst employers, especially those with London-based sites, is how to avoid employee absenteeism during this period.

Mark King widely covered this subject in his recent article published in The Guardian. He believes that some employee management issues may arise during this time and advises on how to deal with them in the most effective way for both employees and employers

       1.       HOLIDAY

Employees

a)      When booking holidays, a notice needs to be given to an employer, which should be at least twice as long as the amount of requested holiday.

b)      If a holiday request was denied tan employee has the right to raise a grievance but, as advised by Sarah Tahamtani, employment partner from Leeds-based law firm Clarion quoted in the article: “[..] should proceed with caution because there is no guarantee this will change the decision”.

Employers

a)      Have the right to refuse holiday request as long as they are not preventing employees from taking their statutory holiday over the year, Each full-time employee in the UK has the right to a minimum of 28 days of holiday (including bank and public holidays).

b)      Can refuse holiday requests as long as a notice of at least as long as the holiday requested is given to an employee.

c)       May set up a rule to allocate available leave slots on a first-come, first-served basis or a policy determining who should be allowed the time off and apply these rules consistently and on a non–discriminatory basis.

         2.       LATENESS

Employees

a)      Could face tube and bus  delays of at least a half-hour at some stations. The timings are also likely to be affected. Road alterations could also disrupt car commuters.

b)      Are advised to visit the government website getaheadofthegames.com to find out if their journey will be affected and plan in advance by avoiding trouble areas or leaving home earlier.

c)       Should warn their employer well in advance about possible lateness and try to put arrangements in place. “If your boss knows your expected time of arrival, he or she may be able to cover your work with your colleagues or managers.” – adds Ms Tahamtani.

d)      Are not entitled to be paid for the lateness time unless their employer agrees otherwise

e)      If they are late for reasons beyond their control and their employer takes disciplinary action that they consider to be unfair, they have the right to appeal.

Employers

a)      Have a right to take disciplinary action against an employee who is persistently late.

b)      Should clearly specify the consequences of being late to work during Olympics time and are advised to be more understanding about the reasons of lateness beyond employees control.

       3.       “THROWING A SICKIE”

 Employees

a)      Should not lie to their boss about the reasons for absence as these, when revealed could lead to gross misconduct.

b)      Are advised that if they are genuinely ill at the time of the Olympics, they should obtain a note from their doctor to add credibility to their statement and avoid disciplinary action.

Employers

Have every right to start disciplinary procedure against an employee who has been caught on “pulling a sickie”.

       4.        FLEXIBLE WORKING

Employees

a)      Could request flexi time during the Olympics to avoid heavy traffic, delays ot to able to attend the games.

b)      Shouldn’t  complain because their colleagues in the London office are allowed to work from home and they’re not, the law does not state that temporary measures granted to workers in one office should be rolled out nationwide.

Employers

a)      As advised by Nikki Walker from the employment team at a law firm Taylor Wessing, you may offer employees a compressed week, changing their core hours, or staggered start and finish times.

b)      Could equip your employees with laptops, Internet and technology allowing them to work remotely

c)       Move all important meetings from morning to the afternoon hours to avoid having to face the rush hour

For more information on how to manage various types of absences, including those during Olympics time visit our previous blog entry http://bit.ly/HV5MLr

*Source http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/apr/27/time-off-work-olympics?newsfeed=true

The subject of employee sickness absence becomes increasingly popular amongst all business sectors and sizes.

But unfortunately not for good reasons.

Employee absence costs money and decreases productivity, therefore dealing with any cases of employee absence is not easy but absolutely necessary.

The right knowledge and advice is needed to manage this issue effectively.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development decided to lend UK employers a helping hand.

A recently launched employee health and well-being web area, developed in partnership with AXA PPP healthcare is designed to provide the latest guidance on the sickness absence and mental health at work matters.

Topics covered include: building a culture of organisational well-being, psychological health in the workplace, rehabilitation and occupational health, and line manager capability.

Amongst the recently published articles were:  

• ·         “The importance of line managers: well-being and performance”
• ·         “Manager support for return to work following long-term sickness absence”
• ·         “Management competencies for enhancing employee engagement”

Visit the new web area today to access the information.

Many of the resources in the employee health and well-being web area are only available to CIPD members. If you’re not a member, click here to join CIPD.

Want to learn more about Mitrefinch Absence Management System? Visit our website now! www.mitrefinch.co.uk

Only 4 out of 10 employers have so far planned and communicated to their staff the rules of booking leave during the Olympics time.

A survey recently conducted by Badenoch & Clark has found that 60 per cent of employees are still awaiting an official leave policy to be announced.

Of those that already have a policy in place, the most popular approach is ‘first come, first served’, while a small number of employers have disallowed annual leave on certain key dates.

Nicola Linkleter, managing director of Badenoch & Clark comments: “The 2012 Games seem to have come round too quickly for many businesses and with only 100 days to go, employers need to seriously start considering their official leave policy”.

“Given the immense interest the 2012 Games will create across the country and with many employees planning to attend key events, poor business planning could lead to employee discontent, confusion or empty offices. If it transpires that lots of people have booked off the same period of annual leave or choose to take a ‘sickie’ due to uncertainty over leave, offices could be seriously understaffed” – Ms Linkleter added.

The company did another research back in July 2011 which revealed that one in six employees were considering calling sick in order to watch Olympics due to a lack of clarity over leave policy.

Nicola stressed that it’s important for employers to firm up their annual leave policies and contingency plans for possible staff shortfalls and communicate these policies to employees as soon as possible.

An automated holiday planning system could prevent staff shortages during Olympics and ever after!

The system gives your staff the option to check their accrued, planned and taken leave as often as required and request holidays without having to speak to their managers. If a request is submitted, a manager receives an email notification to approve it.

This way of managing holidays saves your employees and managers time and the resources needed in the past to complete a paper-based request.

With an event like the Olympics, a supervisor could set up leave slots. This option restricts the number of people which would be allowed to take holiday on the same day. When trying to book a holiday on a day when already for example 3 other people have planned to be on leave, an employee would get a rejection message and would have to change or abandon their request.

In addition, your department managers, while on leave, could ‘escalate’ their responsibilities regarding approving/declining holiday requests to supervisors so that any holiday-related issues are sorted without delays.

Having an automated holiday planning system would also help your company to avoid any overpayments made as a consequence of wrongly calculated holiday entitlements and save your HR managers a bulk of administration time.

There are many holiday planning software systems available on the market. The best solution to choose would be a system which would not only handle your employees’ entitlements but also monitor their absence through clocking in machines and provide you with valuable information on their unplanned absences such as ‘sickies’.

To find out more on what to consider when choosing a time and attendance system download our guide now by clicking here.

With 218,000 tribunal claims in 2010-11 and almost 25 percent of those for unfair dismissal, it was likely that the government was going to take steps to reduce the number of claims made.

The decision was made that the amount of time an employee has to work for an organisation before being able to make unfair dismissal claim against the employer will be increased.

Anyone hired after 6^th April 2012 will be subject to the two-year rule.

This will not be applied to the cases where dismissal is automatically judged to be unfair because someone has been sacked for trying to exercise their employment rights – these can still be brought at any time.

The government believes that the change from one year to two years will boost companies’ growth by directly saving them £10m per year and could deliver wider benefits worth more than £40m annually.

It says the changes will make it “easier for businesses to take on staff and improve the process when staff have to be let go”. 

Dealing with employees’ claims requires a large chunk of unproductive time spent in court and on consultations with lawyers. This can result in loss of morale among the other employees and the damage to the company’s reputation sometime cannot be reversed.

Below shown are 10 STEPS on how to minimize the risk of employees’ claim:

1. Treat staff in the same way you would like to be treated –being fair, respectful and protective towards your employees’ dignity will build a positive and productive atmosphere in your workplace.

2. Create, promote and enforce workplace rules - prepare an employee handbook, familiarise your workforce with its content and get every employee to sign an agreement to comply with all the work rules. The handbook, despite information explaining employer’s right to terminate employees, hours of work, holiday, maternity leave and sick pay entitlements, should also include an antidiscrimination and harassment policy.

3. Review and communicate company policies on a regular basis – make sure that all your policies are up-to-date and in line with the current laws. Post any updates and ensure all your employees have easy access to them.

4. Put safety and data protection standards into place – make sure employees know they what they are and insist that they obey them.

5. Provide your managers with all necessary and regular training on workplace laws - ensure your supervisors’ knowledge of workplace regulations is up-to-date and that they understand their staff’s rights as described in the employees’ handbook.

6. Be consistent when applying company policies – treat employees equally – do not allow some to escape minor violations while others are disciplined for them. Conduct performance reviews and keep a written record of all unacceptable workplace behaviour.

7. Document the progressive disciplinary process - notify any employee about their unsatisfactory behaviour in writing, have it signed as being discussed and any action being taken, and file this information securely.

8. Ensure employees are compensated for all hours worked – to avoid lawsuits related to payroll, scrupulously collect and always verify your employee attendance records.

9. Set realistic expectations – never pressure employees to “just get it done” by working off the clock. It may lead to claims for stress-related issues and overtime payments.

10. Verify employees’ time records regularly – make sure workers are properly reporting their time. Companies can be liable for unpaid overtime if it can be proven that a supervisor knew about it – even where employees didn’t keep accurate time records.

Although complying with workplace regulations can sometimes be a complex and time-consuming task, there are now widely available solutions that will prove helpful in dealing with such employee matters.

Modern HR systems can create a centre of all HR-related documentation, allowing you to monitor your employees working time and various entitlements. They also reduce the number of mistakes and administration time to an absolute minimum.

A good HR system will provide you with a central database of all your staff details, including documents related to their training, qualifications, entitlements, ages, terms of employment etc.

Combined with an automated Time and Attendance system, it can provide a complete and up-to-the minute record of all employees’ working time data, give you an accurate insight into how long employees are spending in the workplace, and breakdown the hours spent on specific jobs and projects.

For salaried staff, this ensures they are compensated for extra hours worked outside of their normal working day (for example Time Off in Lieu, etc.).

By analysing overtime data and work records, you may also find that it could be more cost effective to bring in additional resources or temporary staff in times of high demand as opposed to paying high overtime rates.

An advanced time and attendance system will also play a critical role in your health and safety procedures. In case of a fire, the system will print off a list of employees currently onsite, allowing you to quickly identify who was in the building when the fire started.

And what’s more, the systems cost much less than the average lawsuit case!

Want to learn more? Visit our website www.mitrefinch.co.uk

For small and medium size companies workforce costs are one of the largest expenditures.

It’s no wonder why, in the current challenging economic climate, so many business owners get increasingly frustrated if the attendance of their employees is poor.

Employee absenteeism costs UK businesses 32 billion per year and therefore forward-thinking companies are proactively searching for solutions which would help them reduce this figure.

In his recent article John Timpson – the owner of the highly successful, family chain of 625 retails stores employing 3000 people- discusses the value of attendance schemes.

John mentions that some critics of the attendance bonuses wonder why it is necessary to pay extra money to people just for doing the job they were hired to do.

He believes that if everyone gets paid the same amount whatever their commitment or contribution it is not surprising that the conscientious workers who are creating success get pretty disenchanted. What’s more, if a skiver gets away with throwing “a sickie” he is highly likely to take advantage and take more and more time off.

Timpson’s workers also have a chance to earn the attendance bonus every week but as soon as they take an unscheduled day off this is taken away from them.

John adds: “Sloppy workers should not get the same pay as their more conscientious colleagues”.

Mr Timpson suggests 5 important points regarding absenteeism:

1. If you have problem with absenteeism it is the management who should be more often than not to blame for this.
2. No business should turn a blind eye to people with a poor attendance record.
3. Every period of absence should be discussed at a back to work interview and it pays to be tough on poor timekeeping by hitting the culprits in their pocket.
4. It will always be a good idea to pay a little bit extra to the perfect timekeepers.
5. Absenteeism and lateness could be prevented by rigorous recruitment standards and creating a great working environment (source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk)

There are many ways how you could incorporate attendance bonus to your organisation.

If you are using a computerised time and attendance system the data needed to calculate the bonus can be easily extracted from your system and imported into your payroll application.

A good t&a system will also have a built in reporting functionality allowing an introduction of more complex bonuses based not only on attendance but any other measurable result.

Several of our clients award their bonuses based not only on attendance but also productivity paid only for the hours worked.

A good example of that would be Vi –Spring –the UK’s premier manufacturer of luxury beds.

The company uses Mitrefinch’s Time & Attendance system (TMS) for over 200 employees based at Plymouth.

The bonus paid in Vi-spring is an overall factory bonus and it is calculated by dividing the daily clocked hours against achieved hour. Achieved hours are the hours that are taken to make each mattress and divan.

HR Manager for Vi-spring, Lesley Smith, explains the details: “Whilst carrying out the installation of Flexipay the implementer wrote a report which allows us to import the weekly hours in respect of bonus payments direct from TMS to Flexipay. This has substantially reduced the amount of time spent processing the bonus and of course eliminates the possibility of error during input.”

The Mitrefinch implementer has also written a further report which calculates the bonus automatically when there is a bank holiday in the week, which Lesley describes as “a great asset”.

Want to learn more about our systems?

Visit www.mitrefinch.co.uk now!

Recent reports show that there is a common lack of knowledge among the UK’s employers about levels of absence through sickness and the wider costs of healthcare.

This suggests a lack of focus on absence rates and on health generally.

A poll of 185 employers in the UK, representing a combined workforce of 650,000 employees, revealed that over a third of businesses do not know how many days employees are absent through ill-health annually, while 53% of respondents admitted that they do not measure the total cost of employee sickness absence. (to read more about this survey go to our –>Employee Management News <– site

With the average level of employee absence staying at very high 7.7 days per employee per day and the annual cost of absence raising to £673.00 per employee per year companies willing to survive the current economic crisis should take steps in order to reduce absence rates.

As James Kenrick, Healthcare Consultant at Aon Hewitt, sais “It is clear that there is a need for healthcare measurement and for tangible improvement on the current situation – but without an accurate picture of sickness absence and healthcare costs, employers will struggle to make and measure improvements.

He added “Employers who are not measuring rates of absence through sickness should start as soon as possible. In our experience, once management is aware of high sickness rates and the corresponding costs, it takes only a modest degree of intervention to bring rates down swiftly”.

Modern time and attendance system bring you tools to tackle this issue effectively.

A computerised time and attendance management solution gives you much more insight into the issue than just a simple clocking in machine.

The data collected either via biometric/swipe card/proximity card readers, mobile and landline phones, PCs, PDAs is delivered to managers in an easy to understand highly customisable form.

The reports can include information on general absence rates, absence trends and costs, reoccurring absenteeism, lateness rates etc.

Add to that a built in Bradford Factor – a mathematical equation allowing you to evaluate how big impact each of the short-term absences has got on your business (in comparison to single incidences of prolonged absence)- and you can finally start might be ‘pulling sickies’.

The attendance management system such us the one developed by Mitrefinch can make it easy to track attendance patterns and discover problem areas early on – before absences get out of control.

This can give you the chance to discuss the situation with an individual and find out if there are ways to make positive changes – especially if there is an underlying reason for their poor attendance record.

In many cases, just knowing that automated employee absence management systems are in place is enough to deter staff members from taking unnecessary leave.

Want to learn more about employee management systems? Visit our website www.mitrefinch.co.uk

‘God’s own county’ – Yorkshire has its own mafia!

The county’s number one business community with its memorable name and motto ‘In Yorkshire, for Yorkshire’ promotes dialogue and cooperation between local businesses.

Mitrefinch with its headquarters in York have recently been accepted to the group and will be proudly exhibiting their time and attendance and access control world-famous solutions during the business show case and conference organised by the Mafia!

The event is only six days away and will take place between 21^st-22^nd March at Royal Armouries in Leeds.

The conference organisers promise:

- 161 exhibitors

- Over 3000 business people expected to attend

- A wide range of free seminars, key notes and the ‘Billion Pound Panel’ made of out 5 most successful Yorkshire businessmen

Don’t miss out this biggest conference in Northern England! Learn more reasons to be proud resident of Yorkshire!

To register for the event and seminars and learn about the Yorkshire Mafia Group go to www.theyorkshiremafia.com

Every year, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) receives thousands of employer returns, containing personal details and National Insurance Numbers of millions of employees.

While the vast majority of the data is correct, in some cases incomplete or incorrect information is included.

According to HMRC more than 500 employer annual returns sent at the end of 2009/2010 tax year, incorrectly claimed that they employed someone called ‘a’ and ‘other’, 128 staff were entered as Mr, Ms or Mrs Dummy, while 824  had the surname ‘Unknown’.

Another 40 employees, according to their dates of birth, were aged over 200.

As a result of the above, employees end up paying wrong tax amounts, get over or under paid and their state benefits and state pensions are wrongly calculated.

This also has an impact on employers which have to spend more time clarifying and correcting the mistakes, while HMRC has to deal with duplicate records and amend wrongly calculated tax codes.

That is why HMRC has launched a new online video to help employers reduce time and costs caused by inaccurate employee data.

The short YouTube video explains how inaccurate employer returns can affect employees, employers and HMRC, and offers an advice on how employers can help reduce errors.

One way to avoid employee data mistakes is to use commercial payroll software.

Our HMRC Flexipay payroll software, which meets the HRMC payroll standard, offers a year-end employee returns option as a standard feature.  If you use the software for your day-to-day payroll during the year it will automatically complete and file your return online at the end of the tax year.

That way you can save time by avoiding multiple entries of the same data which can cause mistakes and stop doing complex calculations.

All you need to remember is to make sure that the original data which you entered to the system (employee’s full name, date of birth, NI number, gender information and address) is correct. To do so, always check your employees data against their birth certificate, passport or official documents issued by HRMC and DWP.

If you wish to learn more about our Flexipay payroll software of a full range of our Employee Management Systems visit our Mitrefinch website today!

Source: http://www.workplacelaw.net/content/39516

The current economic climate is forcing many white-collar, public sector workers to spend more time at work than the typical 9-5.

However, it was proven that this can have a damaging impact on their mental wellbeing.

A recent study found out that working 11-hour days on a regular basis can more than double a worker’s risk of depression compared to employees who typically work an eight hour day.

More than 2,000 British civil servants who had no mental health problems were researched when the study began in 1991. Six years later, 66 cases of major depression were found in the workers after they received mental health screenings.

Men and women who worked more than 11-hour days had a more than twofold increased risk of depression, compared to employees who spent less than eight hours at the work.

Marianna Virtanen, a study researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health believes that a variety of genetic, physical, and emotional factors can make a person vulnerable to depression. At the workplace, the prolonged stress felt by people with long hours is one of the contributing factors to depression.

Dr Virtanen believes that: “Long working hours are likely to be related to less time to relax and less sleep. It is also possible that excessive working hours result in problems with close relationships, which in turn, may trigger depression”.

Signs of depression can be found in trouble sleeping, feeling stressed, being irritable and dissatisfied, or lacking pleasure in those things that usually make you happy. A depressed person can also be less efficient at their job, make more mistakes than normal and have trouble getting organized or concentrating.

It is important that managers use the information collected by their time and attendance system to monitor not only the contracted hours of their staff but also the extra hours which employees put to complete the projects.

This can help in taking steps to release some overloaded with work employees. This could in turn increase their overall wellbeing and productivity and prevent a long term absence caused by depression or work burn-out.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9038507/People-who-work-11-hours-are-twice-as-likely-to-suffer-depression.html