PLG Associates – Developers of People and Organisational Change Capability

Human Resource Help©

Human Resource Solutions addressing Compliance Issues and more

Are workplace staff issues troubling you?
Do your HR processes need to be brought up to date?
Have your managers handled a staffing issue completely wrong and left you liable?
Do you have health and safety issues that need adressing quickly?
Is your staff handbook out of date - or you don't have one?
Do you need to implement a HR computer system and don't know who to turn to?
Are you about to face a claim in an Employment Tribunal?

Don't delay - contact us straight away.

We can help you produce substantial improvements at all levels, by taking on part or all of your HR workload. Let us help you to address your areas of non compliance, with solutions tailored to your needs and at a price you can afford.

Our HR specialists are CIPD qualified and Chartered Members of the CIPD, as well as being committed to Continuing Professional Development, thereby assuring you of up to date skills and knowledge at your service.

HR Advice Line

Worried about the legal implications of recruiting or dismissing someone?
Have a problem that's too tough to handle on your own? Just want to bounce an idea off of someone?

The HR Advice Line provides you with immediate access to experienced HR Experts, able to answer your questions on day to day employment issues.

Organisational Healthcheck

We will undertake a healthcheck of your business to identify any areas of non compliance, looking at your policies, processes and procedures.

From this we will produce a report setting out the healthcheck status and clear recommendations for any required remedial actions.

The recommendations are focused on overcoming any HR areas where your Business may be vulnerable and these are presented to you quickly, helping you to make decisions based on clear facts.

Next Steps

Discuss your requirements with one of our Directors by clicking here. An example of legislative changes is shown below and changes like these could mean you are non compliant.

Changes made to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 From 1 October 2004

Key Changes for Employers?

Small business exemption abolished.
Scope of employment covered increased.
New types of discrimination.
The way in which employers (may or may not) justify discrimination changed.
A specific offence of harassment.
Ex employees now covered by the Act.
Burden of proof shifted in alleged cases of discrimination.

Removal of Small Business Exemption

The exemptions for Employers in SMEs were removed from 1st October 2004 (employers with less than 15 employees) - reference to the employment discrimination provisions of the DDA. For the purposes of the Act the term "employee" includes part time and full time employees, seasonal workers and in many cases, can include those who contract to work personally (self employed).

Additional Employees will now be Protected by the Act and these include:

non civilian workers working in the Royal Army,
Prison Service,
Fire service,
Barristers
Ambulance Service,
Police Force,off shore workers (people employed on ships and aeroplanes) could be protected where it is deemed that they are employed, for the purposes of the Act, in Great Britain.

Harassment

Harassment remains undesirable in whatever setting and is expressly prohibited by the Act. It is behaviour which has the purpose or effect of violating the victim's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him or her. Employers need to provide a procedure to deal with cases of harassment, including its impact on conduct, non culpable inefficiency and other equality and diversity areas.

Service Providers please note -

You need to provide reasonable access to your goods and services. For a small retailer who has a step at their entrance, the step presents an obstacle to a person in a wheelchair. This client of PLG took the very reasonable "step" (sorry) of keeping a lookout for any people in wheelchairs and having an employee provide them with a personal retail service on the doorstep.

If this type of situation applies to you, care should be taken to either remove the feature (the step), provide a reasonable means of avoiding it (the personal service described may not be practical to a busy retail outlet), change it so that it is no longer an obstacle (putting in a ramp), or provide an alternative way to access the service.

This short article has been provided for your information and does not cover the full impact of the removal of exemptions from 1 October 2004. If you wish to discuss your situation please ring +44 (0)24 7668 3447. or click here to send us an email, giving us your contact details and we will ring you back.