Traditional Recruitment, time to change? You've posted the job, sifted through 40 CVs, interviewed three people, and you're still not sure you've found the right person. Sound familiar? Here's the reality: AI isn't just something the big HR teams are experimenting with. If you're an SME, you're probably already using it to write job ads and you can be certain your applicants are using it to write their CVs and applications. The question isn't whether AI is part of your recrui

Holiday and SSP pay From April, Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) will be payable from day one for all employees regardless of earnings. At the same time, the introduction of the Fair Work Agency (FWA) brings increased scrutiny around holiday pay and record keeping. For small businesses, this means greater cost exposure, higher compliance expectations, and less room for error. Here’s what’s changing and what to review now. 1. SSP Changes – What’s New - SSP will be paid from day one

Employment law updates April 2026 Employment law changes are getting a lot of attention right now. While many reforms are still coming, there are several things employers should already have implemented. If you run a small business or manage people, these are the key updates to review now. 1. Inform Employees of Their Right to Join a Trade Union As of February, employers must inform employees of their right to join a trade union, even if the organisation is not unionised and

How to deall with the little HR issues It has been an interesting start to the year. It feels like there must be something in the air as many of my clients are phoning to talk to me about the same issue, employee attitude and behaviour. It feels like we live in a world now where everyone complains more or is just unhappy. Chat GPT is being used to create grievances and complaint letters, what probably starts off as a small niggle, suddenly becomes an overblown 5 page lette

Probation periods I dislike the term probation, it just has a very negative feel to it. Often when people have been offered a new role they are bringing a lot of experience with them and the term probation feels quite judgemental. Now don’t get me wrong we have all had bad hires. This happens for many reasons, for my own part the worst hire I had was due to lack of clarity around the job description. I had a limited budget at the time and there was a lot of discussion arou

AI in HR Back in the 90’s (late 90’s), I was reading psychology at university and Artifical Intelligence (AI) was part of one of the modules. Fascinating at the time, this was, of course, before mobile phones were really a thing, the internet was around but not like it is now and social media still in the future. At the time I didn’t really give it much thought but fast forward a few decades and here we are. AI is everywhere, popping up in google searches, offering to tran

TheFair Work Agency As part of the UK Governments employment rights bill the Fair Work Agency (FWA) has been created as an Executive Agency of the Department for Business and Trade. The agency will take on enforcement for employment rights and be a single place where workers and employers can turn for help. The FWA will support employers to ensure that they comply with the law, however they will also have strong powers to investigate and take actions against businesses that

Get ready for employment law changes We all know about the Governments Employment Rights Bill, after much back and forth and amendments it finally achieved royal assent in December 2025. The act will make amendments to existing legislation as will as introducing additions, most of which will take place in 2026 and 2027. What can we expect over the next 12 months and beyond. One change which happened as soon as the Bill became law was the removal of the minimum service l

HR should be empathetic HR is there to protect the business and ensure that employment legislation is followed so you don’t end up in a tribunal or paying money out to avoid tribunal. That is part of HR’s role, compliance is a key area. In the UK there is a lot of employment legislation and it is there to ensure fairness and protect employees, after all employers hold the power in the relationship. That is only part of the story though. I pondered this question recently wh

The office Christmas party It’s that time of year and once again the Christmas party is looming. It should be a fun event, the is Company paying for employees to get together, let their hair down and have fun. I used to have many an argument with the CEO about the Christmas party and normally get accused of being the fun police. However, after several serious incidents he realised that in fact, my lets be sensible approach actually meant employees had more fun because thin

Consistency in teams and HR, more than process We talk a lot about consistency in HR. We have policies to follow to ensure that the same process happens every time someone raises a grievance, finds themselves in a disciplinary or submits a flexible working request. This type of consistency is needed, the process is the process. But what do we really mean by consistency? I used to think that having consistency meant treating everyone the same and applying the same outcome t

Redundancy and dealing with job loss Redundancies are always a difficult conversation, you are making decisions to cut costs in order to ensure the survival and profitability of an organisation. For the majority of businesses, people are the biggest cost and inevitably when money needs to be saved, people is one of the first areas to be looked at. Whilst it is jobs that are redundant we all know the reality is here are people attached to those jobs, who for no fault of the

Do you need all these HR policies? I am not a fan of lots of policies! Yes, I am an HR professional who doesn’t think it is necessary to have policies for everything. In fact in an ideal world, we wouldn’t need policies at all, we are all adults going to work to do a job in exchange for (mostly) money and our employers should trust us to do it. The reality is most people do want to do a good job and will act in a professional manner, however, we all know that not everyone

Menopause and coping in the workplace Menopausal women are the fastest growing demographic in the workplace. Women in their 40’s and 50’s are often at the peak of their career and then perimenopause hits. With a wide range of symptoms the experience of the menopause is different for everyone and there is no way of knowing when it will start, how long it will last or what the effects will be. Some stats The average age of the menopause is 51. But symptoms start at 40. 1 in 1

Communicating at a team meeting Internal communication often feels impossible to get right. In every employee survey I have ever run, the one thing, without fail, which employees always say needs improving is communication. Ask any senior leader and they will be adamant that they communicate well, ask employees and they will be adamant that they haven’t been told XY and Z. Communication is key in the workplace and it happens all the time whether we are aware of it or not.

Annual appraisal Appraisals the word that strikes dread into every HR person, manager and employee. Let’s be honest, no-one likes...

Leadership I have been a senior leader in organisations for over 15 years and I have always, on the whole, enjoyed it. Yes, it is scary...

Leavism is on the rise According to an article In People Management 59% of UK employees stated they worked whilst on holiday, with 20%...

Employees surveys Over the years I have had many discussions about the worthwhileness of employee surveys and seen lots of comments about...

AI in the workplace Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for years, but recent advancements mean its pace of development is...