Myriad HR Newsletter

Changes to Disciplinary & Grievance Procedures from 6th April 2009

Some of the more difficult aspects of the current Statutory Disciplinary and Grievance procedures are due to be removed on 6th April 2009. We are anticipating further information but some of the changes are as follows:

• The requirement to follow a formal statutory 3 step process will no longer apply. However many ‘good practice’ elements are still included in the new approach.
• Employers will be expected to attempt some form of mediation with a third party, including bringing external third parties into the process as required to try to resolve issues before a claim is made.
• Wherever possible disciplinary and grievance matters should be resolved informally.
• The new procedures do not apply to redundancy or fixed term contract terminations so there is no longer the need to treat these as being subject to the minimum dismissal procedures. Having said that, fairness and open communication should still apply.
• A failure by either party to behave fairly and/or reasonably throughout the procedure could result in an increase or decrease of any compensation awarded by up to 25%.
• There are new sections on how employers should deal with issues that involve overlapping issues such as disciplinary and grievance.
• Additional detail is given relating to managing any disciplinary process including the use of witnesses and statements.

Any disciplinary process commenced prior to the 6th April or where the actions occurred prior to the 6th of April will need to apply the current statutory process. If an employee brings a grievance after 6th April but is complaining of an act by the employer which occurred prior to 6th April the current process will apply.

When to Call it Quits

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development were recently quoted on national news stating that companies should avoid losing all of their good people through redundancy and that these people will be needed once things pick up. It’s just that small businesses can’t always ‘carry’ people if sales are not good or orders cancelled.

The main ‘fair’ reasons for dismissal are:

• based on poor performance
• based on poor conduct
• redundancy or the job no longer being required or need for certain work reduced.

If you are opting for the first 2 bullets then you should be managing the situation as a ‘case’ i.e. you should have a complete log of each performance or conduct issue, what has been agreed, what has happened and what are the agreed actions if improvement does not take place. If you don’t have this then you can’t take action to terminate employment unless there is a situation involving gross misconduct. However, if you start to experience problems with an employee then you should start to use your formal disciplinary process to try to improve the situation or at least commence the case file.

If you are really struggling with high costs then making some roles redundant may be the best option. The main considerations are:

• has the job disappeared, or
• has the need for the type of work or job diminished?

If you can say yes to these then you are likely to have a valid reason for termination. You will need to consider employment law relating to consultation, redundancy procedures, statutory dismissal process and redundancy payments.

We provide a free guide on Making Career Decisions (available from our on-line website) to assist any employees you might be losing.