HR in 90 Seconds - August 2019

This month's HR in 90 Seconds takes on a new approach…I am bringing you this article for the first time as a writer for Legal Island! I have taken off my Legal Island hat and have started a new role as an HR Manager, I thought I would bring you the best bits from the Legal Island hub with a quickfire round up of the things that I have learnt this month.

3 top things to read and learn this month from Legal Island:

1. Key benefits of corporate wellness;
2. Worklife balance is the responsibility of both employer and employee; and
3. The importance of the paper trail in the absence management process.

The Business of Corporate Wellness

Mairead Reagan from Clarendon Executive this month talks about the concept of corporate wellness and the recent shift towards an employer’s part in a person’s overall health and wellbeing.

Despite the evolution of the corporate wellness activities the reasons for organisations in taking part in this comes into the employer branding, Mairead identifies that for an organisation there are a number of key benefits:

• Increased productivity and profit;
• Decreased absenteeism;
• Better engagement and staff retention;
• Talent attraction and
• Improved morale.

The full article on The Business of Corporate Wellness links to the key point that for a progressive employer, employee wellness will form a key component of a robust business strategy. As a standalone agenda, a wellness programme will be devoid of other essential ingredients, such as trust and a coaching culture, and therefore risk turning into yet another management fad.

Mairead also teams up with her colleague from Clarendon Executive Hugh McPoland in the next HR Bitesize Podcast on the importance of promoting a culture of work life balance in an organisation. This podcast leads on from a previous conversation around employer brand and its importance in today's war on talent. They discuss who is responsible for work-life balance, the role that managers have, how to encourage it and engaging with staff on the matter. The key things that I took away from this podcast were:

1. Worklife balance is the responsibility of both employer and employee;
2. Senior Managers and Supervisors need to lead by example; and
3. Consider ‘what am I doing?’ – am I living the policies of the organisation.

I recently received an article from a contact who asked me ‘are you responsible for the employer brand?’ and that got me thinking. This subject that we now discuss all the time as part of HR day to day life has emerged as a whole new discipline for those in HR. We are working to seek to attract and retain talent by telling our companies’ story.  We are using job adverts, social media, review sites etc. to proactively communicate the story of what it’s like to work for ‘our organisation’. Today’s job seekers require transparency and insight into a company’s culture before even applying. What happened to the days of newspaper ads with a few sentences telling you the key parts of the role? An insight into company reputation is important for 95% of job seekers these days.

As I am currently embarking on a new recruitment strategy for a growing business I was interested to read this article to see what are the 5 most important considerations are when a candidate is researching a company before submitting an application.

1. Stability of the company was a clear winner (47%);
2. Insights around benefits and perks, flexibility and salary ranges for relevant roles (45%);
3. Information about growth opportunities (41%);
4. company management (34%) and;
5. The company’s mission and vision (31%).

I think that we can say for certain it has never been more important to build on your employer brand! Read the full blog post: http://blog.indeed.com/2018/05/15/jobseeker-transparency-report/

Other items of interest:

Leeanne from TLT adds to the handbook series the next installment on Equal Opportunities outlining an employer’s obligations in complying with the legislation. Including employees, contract workers and applicants for employment all having statutory protection against discrimination under a number of distinct pieces of equality legislation, covering protected characteristics such as gender; religious belief; age; disability etc. Have you booked your place for your annual update on NI employment law developments  where you can hear Leeanne from TLT as she offers guidance on creating and reviewing the employee handbook? Early bird offers ends Friday 13th September 2019.

Johanna Cunningham from Arthur Cox answers a few questions in First Tuesday including is it lawful to only provide electronic payslips? The law governing payslips is set out under Article 40 of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (“ERO”) which, in short, requires employees to be given a written itemised pay statement. Recent case law has confirmed that payslips provided electronically will be deemed written.

The next webinar details are:

[Free Webinar] Employment Law at 11

Friday 6th September 2019 (11:00am - 11:45am)

Join Scott Alexander, Seamus McGranaghan, Hannah McGrath and up to 500 participants as they discuss your employment law queries live in the next “Employment Law at 11”.  Legal Island has been offering these webinars in partnership with O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors for two years (and answered over 200 questions) - to mark the occasion O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors are offering 15 minutes of free consultation to five lucky webinar attendees.

Tell your HR colleagues and register individually or get your HR team around the computer whilst and use the webinars as monthly group learning opportunities. Ask any questions (on employment law) and hear the answers live or catch up later when we upload both a recording and transcript of the discussion.

Polls are the latest feature added to Employment Law at 11 webinar with participants able to engage with the conversation and see the results instantly.

Remember – ask questions during the live broadcast via the chat box, or email your question in advance to scott@legal-island.com.  Anonymity assured.

Register Now: 
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6481985384644411917