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Every business needs capable people managers

There can’t be many business owners / managers who aren’t aware of the legislation passing through parliament to implement the Labour government’s Make Work Pay agenda. It’s likely to receive royal assent in July, and the provisions within the bill will probably come into force in stages. October this year has been suggested for the easier provisions to implement and at least a year before some of the more challenging parts.


As I’ve reviewed the commentary about the Employment Rights Bill (ERB) from employment lawyers over the past few months, two things have become very clear to me:


  • Good employers have no need to worry too much

  • Training managers to follow good people practices is crucial


Many small businesses have accidental managers - those who have been promoted into people management roles with no prior aspiration or development for such a role. Even those pursuing a move into management can be ill equipped. It’s important that all those in people management roles

understand what’s expected of them and have any necessary training to enable them to be capable managers.



What should all people managers be expected to do?


Here are some thoughts from me:

A manager is responsible for ensuring the members of their team work effectively as individuals, and as a team, to deliver desired results for the business. This involves many different aspects of people management, including:


  • Working closely with one's own manager to understand their expectations of your team, to make decisions related to your team, to report on the team’s performance and to escalate any issues appropriately


  • Communicating team goals, performance standards and other expectations to team members, and leading by example


  • Overseeing the work of the team, prioritising and allocating tasks, managing workloads and ensuring deadlines and quality standards are met


  • Ensuring team members have the information, tools and other resources they need to be successful in their roles


  • Providing feedback to team members, supporting them to develop their skills and performance


  • Seeking feedback and suggestions from the team to continually improve team working practices


  • Identifying and addressing issues that arise within the team and supporting the team to overcome obstacles and barriers to success


  • Fostering a positive, collaborative and mutually supportive team environment


  • Hiring the right people into the right roles within your team and ensuring they’re trained appropriately



Reducing risks of unfair dismissal claims


If you want to reduce risks to your business, when the right to not be unfairly dismissed starts applying from day one of employment, I suggest you prioritise training your managers (starting with yourself, if you’re the business owner) on good practice in these key areas:


  • Recruitment and selection

  • Induction training

  • Expectation setting

  • Giving feedback

  • Having difficult conversations


If you and your managers are doing all of these well, the risks of an unfair dismissal claim reduce significantly. On the beneficial side, new staff will be positively contributing to your business sooner.



Changing working arrangements


Once you’ve agreed someone’s terms and conditions of employment, any changes must be agreed by both parties. The ERB includes enhanced rights for employees both where they are requesting a change and where you are proposing a change. Of course, where you and the employee are both

happy with the change, there’s little to worry about. But, if there’s a disagreement, then failing to follow the right process, and consider all the correct information, could be very costly.


I recommend that all people managers have training to improve their awareness of the law and good practices around:


  • Handling requests from team members to change their working arrangements

  • Consulting with people on changes the business wants to make to working arrangements


We also know that businesses will increasingly need to consider a variety of different working patterns and hybrid working arrangements. It’s important to give managers the right skills and tools to effectively manage teams that don’t all work at the same time or in the same place.



Sexual harassment at work


If you haven’t already completed a risk assessment and trained your managers on ways to prevent sexual harassment at work then you might want to get in touch with us. The current proposal is to require businesses to take all reasonable steps to protect their employees from sexual harassment at work - this includes harassment not just from colleagues but also customers, suppliers and other

people they come into contact with. There are also planned changes that mean if someone feels forced to leave your company after making a complaint of sexual harassment, their legal claim could be VERY costly for you, even if you win the case.



How can we help?


We’re exploring the idea of running some one day courses on the basics of people management, and also running workshops on:


  • Recruitment, selection and induction

  • Setting expectations and giving feedback

  • Having difficult conversations

  • Navigating changes to terms and conditions


In addition, we may run another half day workshop on protecting your staff from sexual harassment.


Obviously, it’s only viable for us to run this training if we have good attendance numbers. If you think any of these topics would be of interest to you, or your managers, then please get in touch and we can discuss the options further with you.

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