What HR policies do I need?
When you employee people in your business, you will have a number of responsibilities and obligations to meet in order to remain compliant within employment law.
One of these is to have the appropriate statutory employment policies in place and accessible to your employees.
Well-written HR policies give managers and employees guidelines and a consistent, fair and legal way to deal with problems and issues. They establish a structured and organised work environment, eliminate uncertainty in the workplace and define the ways to handle many of the people management issues that can arise.
HR policies also help to protect the organisation in HR legal issues such as employment tribunals, as they safeguard, regulate and clarify the rights and responsibilities of the employer and its employees.
As a legal minimum, you should have the following policies in place;
Disciplinary and dismissal
Grievance
Health and Safety (if you employ 5 or more people)
We would also strongly recommend that you have an Employee Privacy Notice too.
If you only have a small handful of employees, you may manage with these alone, however as your business and your team grows it would be advisable to also put in place other key policies to help keep things clear with regards to how you manage people in your business and to maintain transparency and consistency across all your processes.
Other policies to consider having in place are:
Sickness and Absence Management
Data Protection
Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Parental Leave, Time off for Dependants, Compassionate Leave
Social Media, Internet and Email Use
Anti-bullying and Harassment
Equal Opportunities
Flexible Working
Redundancy
Capability Management
Home working
There are many more depending on the type of business you have and how prescriptive you want to be.
Don’t forget to review and update your policies regularly to ensure they are still relevant and compliant with current law.
Finally, there are a variety of ways you can store these policies for ease of access such as in your Company Handbook, online in a shared folder, on your intranet or within your HR System (HRIS).
If you require help to either review or put in place employee polices, handbooks or an HRIS, then please get in touch to discuss further.
dawn@helixhrconsulting.com