HR casework, absence, performance and training

Most employment problems are solvable and become expensive only through how they are handled. A UK tribunal will look at whether the employer had a fair reason and followed a fair process, and the second of those is where an overseas group without UK experience usually comes unstuck.

Absence and sickness

Statutory sick pay is due from the fourth day of absence. Beyond the money, repeated short absences and long-term sickness need different approaches, and both need records kept from the start rather than assembled later. Where ill health may amount to a disability, the employer has a duty to consider reasonable adjustments, and failing to consider them is itself a claim regardless of how the absence is otherwise handled. This is the area where well-meaning managers create the most liability.

Performance and capability

Poor performance is a potentially fair reason to dismiss, following a process: making the standard clear, giving support and a genuine opportunity to improve, and warning that the job is at risk. Skipping to the end because everyone knows it is not working is a common way a fair decision becomes an unfair dismissal.

Disciplinary and grievance

The statutory code of practice sets what a tribunal measures against: investigate, put the allegations in writing, hold a meeting, allow the employee to be accompanied, decide, and offer an appeal. An unreasonable failure to follow it can increase an award by up to a quarter. The process is not difficult, but it is prescriptive: each stage has a required step and a required record.

Redundancy

Redundancy is a fair reason where the role goes. It requires a fair selection process, individual consultation, consideration of alternative roles, and statutory redundancy pay for those with two years' service. Where twenty or more roles are at risk at one establishment, collective consultation applies with a statutory minimum period before any dismissal takes effect. Groups restructuring globally often miss that the UK timetable is fixed by law.

Training for the UK managers

Most of the above is prevented by a manager who knows what a UK process looks like before they need one. We provide short practical training for line managers on absence, performance, conduct and the harassment duty, which is the highest-return HR spend a small UK operation makes.

How this is delivered

With our HR partner, who runs casework daily, and an employment solicitor where a matter becomes legal rather than procedural. Buzz coordinates, runs the payroll consequences and keeps the records. Delivery covers England, Wales and Scotland; Northern Ireland employment law differs and we will say so.