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The new financial year has arrived for many businesses and with that comes a tide of new employment law changes now in effect, including increases to national minimum wages and sick pay.
For many organisations, these latest developments are just another thing on an ever-increasing to-do list; a problem that needs more thinking time to solve with limited time to manage.
So, how can business owners and HR managers juggle everything? Here we provide our top tips for prioritisation.
Tip one: Ensure your people remain the priority
When it comes to HR compliance and legislation, there’s understandably a nervousness to get things actioned correctly and in a timely manner, but that shouldn’t be to the detriment of your workforce. Remember to keep your promises when it comes to company culture and employee engagement – don’t just shift over to what seems to be the most pressing problem.
The employment market is still extremely volatile and colleagues who feel they’re not valued or listened to might just decide to jump ship – then all that time spent on prioritising compliance will pale into insignificance when recruitment becomes more of a pressing problem.
Tip two: Understand how your workforce is faring
Prioritising staff welfare and wellbeing is essential – but do you truly understand what challenges are affecting them?
Rising food, fuel and utilities costs are hugely impacting the day-to-day lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and this could include some of those on your payroll. Now more than ever, they need to feel listened to and able to communicate with their managers –issues such as not being able to afford travel to work each day and worrying about feeding their families are not minor concerns.
Opening and maintaining transparent lines of communication with workers has never been more important. An open-door policy, where team members can quite literally go and talk to their line-managers without an appointment, can work well. Regular ‘pulse’ surveys, that can be run through scheduling apps like ours, are also highly valuable, asking employees for their feedback and letting them know that their opinions matter. It’s important that feedback is taken on board and followed up – with individual meetings where appropriate, and ‘you said, we listened’ updates for wider company issues.
Tip three: Let tools help shoulder some of the burden
If technology isn’t already part and parcel of your people management strategy, then now is the time to make the investment – particularly to help navigate those tricky compliance introductions and support staff communications.
Although budgets might be tight, undertaking a simple comparison exploring the cost of the tool versus the managerial hours taken to do a task, may just prove that the investment is worth the outlay.
Those forward-thinking organisations that use a workforce management tool, for example, will automatically benefit from legislative updates, including the recent changes relating to minimum wage increases, National Insurance contributions and sick pay. At the touch of a button, they’re compliant. Doesn’t that sound nice?
In direct response to the wider challenges that businesses have faced in the last two years, Quinyx has launched its Advanced Analytics product solution, which includes comprehensive compliance analytics. For more information visit: www.quinyx.com
