Heaven is a good outsource solution…

I have written posts in the past about outsourcing including legal considerations and other factors to keep in mind when going down this route

Some businesses might be put off because outsourcing can go well or it can go wrong. Luckily there are some easy ways to make sure that your outsourcing project is heavenly…

• Seventh heaven – The first step on the path to outsourcing is to identify exactly what it is you need to achieve to reach your goals. Some businesses will want to outsource their non-core processes so that more time can be spent on revenue-generating work or to give the business a more flexible framework. Some might outsource because they need more support in a particular area and they need their employee(s) to be focussing on high priority work, while the outsourced facility does the rest. Whatever the reason, make sure that it is clear in your mind to help you ascend to your final destination…
• A match made in heaven – The next step is finding people that are a good cultural fit and are in tune with your business. They need to understand your business goals and be able to tailor their services to suit your business needs if required.This is something that Reality HR takes very seriously when proving HR support to our clients. In our recent client survey, 100% of our clients who deal with us day to day were happy with the quality of our advice.You can find out more about our HR Outsource service here.

Here is my suggested checklist for you:

• Do you find the outsourced company easy to communicate with?
• Are they a good fit with your business?
• Do you like the people you have met?
• How much time do they plan to spend at your premises?
• Do they understand what you want to achieve?
• What support will there be for staff who need to talk to someone?

• Knocking on heaven’s door – Outsourcing should never be a quick fix. Depending on the nature of your outsource solution, it may take some time to get your team ready for the change. Try involving your existing staff as much as possible in the process, so that when the time comes you don’t meet any resistance or experience any potentially disastrous side effects…
• Heaven knows – It isn’t unusual for a business to outsource a function that they are not experienced in. If this is the case, it is extra important to take the time going through the above points. You can also do your homework and put in place a service level agreement or get something similar written into the contract. This will give you a way out should you start seeing a decline in your return on investment or be unhappy with their service.

Read our HR outsource case study

If you think outsourcing your HR is the way forward for your business, then give me a call on 01256 328 428 to have a chat or tell me the best time to call you.

Request a callback

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from Reality HR Limited http://www.realityhr.co.uk/blog/heaven-good-outsource-solution/

Tips for TUPE: Who transfers?

When undergoing a TUPE or ‘Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981’, it is important to identify which group of employees will be undergoing the transfer.

As so many businesses use outsourcing, flexible working and other frameworks, it can become confusing as to who actually qualifies for a transfer or not. Issues can also be raised if employees are on leave for various reasons during the time of transfer and it is not always easy to ascertain whether an employee falls 100% within the part of the business that is moving.

So who exactly is transferred under TUPE?

Only employees on permanent or fixed term contracts are liable for transfer. Agency workers are not.

Sounds simple, right? If only…

If you happen to have employees who are temporarily assigned to work in a different office or department within the business or for another organisation, this can complicate the situation. That is because it depends on whether they were reassigned in or out of the business during the time of the transfer and on the length of the reassignment.

Hint: It is important to remember that employee liability information should be provided by the transferor to the transferee before the transfer takes place.

So what is the best method for finding out which permanent or fixed term employees qualify for transfer?

The percentage test has long been a rule of thumb in TUPE. This essentially means that you look at the percentage of working time an employee spends in the transferring business or service. If it is 50% or over then they transfer.

However this test has proved controversial and there are plenty of tribunals that back this up. That is because life isn’t always as simple as percentages. An employee may well spend over 50% of his or her time on a particular account or service that is being transferred, but on paper, they might be assigned to a specific department that is not transferring. It is important then to consider the job description of an employee in their employment contract.

You can read an example of this happening within a business here.

So what about Employees who are away at the time of transfer?

Employees on maternity leave, short-term absences or holiday will most likely be transferred. However, things get more complicated, of course, with those on sick leave and particularly those on permanent health insurance. In this instance, an assessment needs to take place as to whether these employees will return to work.

If your head is swimming at this point, don’t worry. Reality HR provides a TUPE service so that we can support you every step of the way.

To find out more, have a chat with me or we can meet up for a coffee! Just call 01256 328 428 or fill out the form below to organise a callback.

Request a callback

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from Reality HR Limited http://www.realityhr.co.uk/blog/tips-tupe-transfers/

Bizpedia partner award!

Press Release

31 May 2016

Laura Awarded for Outstanding Contribution to Bizpedia

Laura Davis, Managing Director of Basingstoke-based HR Consultancy Reality HR, has recently won an award for her Outstanding Contribution as a Bizpedia Partner. Laura was presented with the award at a Gala Dinner held at Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa, attended by 110 business leaders and Bizpedia members from a number of high-profile firms.

Bizpedia is a fast-growing, exclusive business club for companies who want to be part of an ambitious, well-connected community and operates in Portsmouth, Southampton, Winchester, Poole, London and Bournemouth.

Laura has been involved with the club for just over 12 months and has been an active partner of the Winchester Group since November 2015. Louise Pack, Partnership Director at Bizpedia presented Laura with the award, commenting: “Laura has provided exceptional commitment to Bizpedia and her fellow partners over the last year. She is always easy to contact, is meticulous and professional with the leads provided to her and always strives to support the success of the Bizpedia community in any way she can; she truly deserves this award.”

Laura, who has built Reality HR from a standing start in 2004 to an HR Consultancy with 15 high calibre employees supporting 98 companies across the south, commented: “I was surprised and thrilled to receive this award as Bizpedia seems to attract a lot of high quality business professionals, so to be singled out for this award is a great honour. Since becoming involved with Bizpedia I have been fortunate to build some good working relationships with a variety of members and businesses and I look forward to this continuing throughout 2016.”

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from Reality HR Limited http://www.realityhr.co.uk/blog/4138/

Are 4 day weeks an insane idea?

It’s no secret that I am a fan of flexible working, but it seems that the 4 day week method is picking up in popularity.

It is already in use in the Netherlands and seems to be hugely successful.

I said my piece in the HR Grapevine last month, about whether or not this method could work in the UK, which you can read here.

My main points were that I am a great believer in saying, “you only have one life, so don’t spend it all at work”. We must learn to work smarter, not harder, and as a society, we really need to make time to spend with our families.

To be honest it feels like we just aren’t keeping up with the times. There are so many advancements in technology that allow more flexible working than we ever dreamed possible, and a lot of it is free!

Some might feel that it is simply impossible because of the nature of their business, for example a call center or warehouse. Surely you can’t just shut for one day a week? But who says that everyone needs to take the same day off?

Some might feel that if people are only working 4 days a week, surely their employees won’t be producing as much work? Well, I’m sorry to tell you but the UKs productivity is the worst it has ever been. Osborne fails to come up with a solution and the forecasts were grim in the recent 2016 budget. Read my post about that here.

The fact is that France could easily do a four day week and still out do us on productivity…

We need to wake up and make the connection between employees happiness and employees productivity and a day off to spend with their families or to do what they enjoy would definitely make them happy and come back to work refreshed.

Trying to achieve high levels of productivity all the time leads to what I call employee burnout.

Stephanie Vozza wrote in her Fastcompany article that, “According to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, 43% of companies offer four-day workweeks to some employees, and 10% make it available to all or most employees. The reason? It positively impacts the bottomline. “Since we implemented flexible workweeks in 2008, all the metrics a CEO cares about have gone in the right direction,” says Delta Emerson, president of global shared services for the tax services firm Ryan. The company turnover rate dropped from 30% to 11%, revenue and profits almost doubled, client satisfaction scores reached an all-time high, and the firm has received multiple “best place to work” awards.”

Read the full article here.

Managing the performance of remote workers doesn’t have to be any harder than those individuals who are office based.

To find out how Reality HR could support you in creating a flexible working culture or your performance management, give us a call on 01256 328 428 or tell us when to call you:

Request a callback

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from Reality HR Limited http://www.realityhr.co.uk/blog/4-day-weeks-insane-idea/

Microsoft and Dell ditch performance reviews

Several big companies have scrapped performance reviews, which are openly despised by many managers.

The trouble is, they are not necessarily despised because they are not useful, but because they take time, effort and can be awkward. In other words, not everyone has the skills necessary to use performance reviews efficiently.

Is it right to scrap a tool that could potentially be helping businesses to succeed in the long run, just because the users can’t use it?

You can find our more about performance reviews here.

Geof Colvin wrote in his Fortune article, “The theme is consistent: Hallelujah, performance ratings are dead. And I’d be cheering too, except for one problem. Performance ratings in their multiple forms are tools, and at many companies they’re despised not because the tools are bad, but because the users of the tools are inept. The danger is that leaders may conclude they can improve their organization’s performance by changing the tool when the real issue, a much tougher one, is improving the skills of those who use any tool for helping employees get better.”

You can read the full article here.

So if everyone is scraping performance reviews, what are they replacing them with?

Geoff Colvin asked Dave Calhoun, a former GE executive and CEO of Nielsen what he thought about performance reviews. He said the whole point of performance management “is to force a conversation”.  Not all managers enjoy having these conversations or execute them effectively.

I wrote a bit more about this in an older post, where I suggested making candid conversations about performance part of company culture. You can read more here.

You may be inclined to agree with Microsoft or Dell. Things seem to be working well for them. But I think although business success doesn’t only come down to the performance of the employees, some of the other factors may well be influenced by it. For example business goals and business culture are important for any business to succeed, and without good, strong conversations happening between managers and employees, cultures can decline and goals can become skewed.

One of our clients, Caspian one said, “We are delighted with the progress that has been made in the last 12 months. Reality HR’s contribution to improving the way we are now managing performance has been terrific. Laura and her team have also helped us with a number of absence, disciplinary and capability problems. These have all been dealt with in a calm and professional manner, without any comebacks. This is a testament to the robustness of the procedures we now have in place.”

To find out how Reality HR could help train your managers, support your performance management, and support your performance reviews, give us a call on 01256 328 428 or tell us a good time to call you:

Request a callback

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from Reality HR Limited http://www.realityhr.co.uk/blog/microsoft-dell-ditch-performance-reviews/

61% of UK workers believe they aren’t rewarded enough

Incentives go a long way to encouraging employees to perform at their best.

But does it shock you to hear that in a study of 750 UK workers, 61% felt that they don’t receive enough rewards at work?

The Institute of Leadership and Management surveyed 2000 people and found that 17% were planning to leave their current jobs because they felt under-appreciated.

So how far should we go to show our appreciation?

Google offers places for employees to catch a few zs during the day. Netflix offers unlimited holidays. These are all pretty extreme aren’t they? Not entirely plausible for all businesses and not all that necessary.

Ask yourself, would your employees even want these kinds of perks? Probably…

But seriously, everyone would love to use the giant Barclays waterslide to get to and from the office, but I am sure there are much easier, doable and practical employee incentives that could actually improve their work-life balance.

The truth is that you should just ask them what they want. They may decide they would prefer flexible working, which I talked about last week here. We often help clients organise childcare vouchers as another example. You can read more about pay and benefits here.

Read my other post about employee incentives:

Personalising employee motivation

The Motivation of Money

Are you rewarding your staff?

A gift or a bribe?

Give Reality HR a call on 01256 328 428 to find out more about how we could help you with your incentives and improve your employee motivation, or tell us a convenient time to call you:

Request a callback

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from Reality HR Limited http://www.realityhr.co.uk/blog/61-uk-workers-believe-arent-rewarded-enough/

Research finds remote working improves productivity

In last week’s post we looked at the effects of poor management on productivity. You can recap here.

This week I want to explore a different approach to tackling poor productivity. Flexible working.

I am an advocate of this approach as it works so well within my own business. I believe in a good work-life balance. Work hard, play hard.

There is plenty of research out there to back this claim up, including Stanford researchers who found that remote workers were happier and less likely to quit. You can read more about their study here.

But with anything, things can easily go in the opposite direction. Remote working needs to be well implemented. When it is done right, it can help decrease the commuting time for employees, allow them to spend time with their families, and have more control over their working lives. For example, I employ a lot of working mums who manage their time around young children.

 So here are some of my top tips:

• Don’t be afraid to use technology – there are lots of tools out there that can ensure your employees are communicating efficiently in and out of the office. Google, for example, offers a lot of free products that are built around collaboration, real time communication and sharing.
• Team meets – Even if the team is spread out, you can still arrange to all meet either for social events or for team meetings. At Reality HR we have a quarterly team meeting and will do summer events with the children for example.
• Encourage initiative – Happy employees are productive employees. If that means that they need to go to their local Costa when they remote work or listen to music, then they should do it. Not only will this help them to be productive but it will also boost their morale. Happy, engaged employees will ultimately lead to happy customers.

You can read some more of my tips in older posts about remote working here.

Find out more about our performance management service here and read our case study here.

To find out how Reality HR could help your business improve productivity, performance management or efficiently implement remote working in your, give us a call on 01256 328 428 or tell us a convenient time to call you:

Request a callback

 

 

 

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from Reality HR Limited http://www.realityhr.co.uk/blog/research-finds-remote-working-improves-productivity/