HR SupportGet your business on track with expert advice from local professionals.

We understand our clients and their needs by taking the time to listen and explore their requirements, with a much needed personal touch.

Our aim is to offer tailored solutions to meet all of your people needs, with tailored HR Advice and Support, without having the additional cost of employing a full-time member of staff.

We appreciate that it can be difficult running a business regardless of the size without having the added pressure of having to deal with disciplinary issues or employment legislation.

That’s why Talk Staff have friendly hands-on consultants to provide you with a range of services designed to help remove that pressure and keep it all central and in one place.

• Absence Management – Wanting to reduce your employee absenteeism whether it be planned or unplanned absence in your business, which is normally due to illness or injury.  Through having policies and procedures in place to manage your staff absence levels along with carrying out Return to works can help increase your productivity in the workplace.
• Contracts of Employment – An employment contract is a legal relationship between both you as the employer and your employees. Under Employment law, you are obligated to provide anyone classed as an “employee” with a written contract within their first 8 weeks of employment.
• Disciplinaries – In order for any business to operate effectively, organisations should set out standards or code of conduct that informs staff of what is expected of them to abide by in the workplace. If your employee has not followed a rule you as the employer may wish to follow your disciplinary procedures.
• Dismissals – Dismissing your employee should be your last resort however these can sometimes be unavoidable especially if you have tried other forms of methods to resolve a problem informally. Therefore, if you are looking at dismissing an employee then you want to ensure you carry out any necessary investigations without reasonable delay ensuring that a fair and consistent procedure is applied.
• Documentation – Ensuring you are HR compliant is important therefore it is important to have the correct documentation from the offset as this helps you set as the employer the expectations required by the employee and ensure that you carry out a fair process in any of your procedures.
• Employee Exits – Employee exit interviews are a great opportunity for employers to explore and understand an employee’s experience with the organisation. They provide a great way to understand the reasons for leaving and gain a great insight into its talent attraction and retention also and addressing any underlying issues that may require areas of improvement.
• Equality and Discrimination – Ensuring as a business you have fairness in the workplace is vital for any success but sometimes you can be faced with a claim or discriminatory behaviour, therefore, it is important to have the right protection in place even prior to an employee joining your business.
• Grievances – Unfortunately during an employee’s employment they may raise concerns, problems or complaints to you as the employer, this may be related to their working conditions or relationships with colleagues. It is best practice to allow your employees to raise this through your grievance procedures.
• Handbooks – Whilst issuing your staff with a handbook is not a legal requirement, it is a valuable resource as it can allow you to outline company rules, policies and procedures and an overall guideline of what is expected between your company and employees. As the handbook is non-contractual it also allows revised changes and updates to be made in line with legislation changes without having to seek consent from your employees.
• Investigations – Problems can arise from time to time in your workplace and ensuring that they are addressed and dealt with fairly and consistently may mean carrying out an investigation. By employers carrying out properly conducted investigations allows them to fully consider the matter and make an informed decision on it. An investigation is a fact-finding exercise that allows the employer to collect all the relevant information on a matter.
• Policies and Procedures – Whether you are a new business starting up or a long-standing business, it is important to ensure that you have these in place and outlined from the very start as these are your key guides that your employees should abide by.
• Redundancy – This is when you as the employer may need to reduce your workforce because the work/role is no longer required, or the business has ceased to operate. This option should only be considered as a last resort. The law stipulates that in order for a true reflection of redundancy the work must no longer be there, which means the work cannot be covered by another staff member, and a correct and strict procedure followed.
• TUPE – “Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, refers to a process of moving employees from one business to another. TUPE rules apply to organisations of any size and protect employees’ rights when either an organisation or service transfer to a new employer.
• Whistle Blowing – This is when a worker brings information forward to their employer or a relevant organisation about wrongdoing. Under the law, a whistle-blower is protected and shouldn’t be treated unfairly or lose their job for “Blowing the whistle”.  The worker can raise a concern at any time of an incident, whether it be the present, past or likely to happen in the future.