Client A – is a small, Irish owned business, employing 15 people. They were experiencing attendance issues with one employee, who had a history of sporadic absence due to sickness. This issue had not been dealt with in the past, and had now increased in frequency. The Managing Director contacted HR Compass for advice on how to resolve the situation.
HR Compass provide advice on absence management and the disciplinary process, ensuring that a legally compliant policy was in place. We provided letters, documentation, meeting guidelines and advice at the end of the phone at all stages of the process.
When absence problems are left unmanaged, they become more difficult to tackle as the behaviour become entrenched. Failure to deal with disciplinary situations, related to absence or any performance issues, in a procedurally correct manner leaves the employer very exposed to challenges should the decision to dismiss be made.
Client B – is an indigenous organisation, with 100+ employees. They had a standard employee handbook, including a dignity at work policy, which was available to all staff. However, they had no in-house expertise in the application of the policy and when an incident of bullying arose, it was ignored initially and then dismissed as the employee ‘overreacting’.
The employee decided to make a formal complaint under the Dignity at Work policy. HR Compass were brought in to conduct the investigation and provide a full report on the findings, including recommendations, to the organisation. These recommendations included providing training to all relevant managers, clearly displaying a dignity at work notice and putting a process in place for dealing with harassment, sexual harassment and bullying issues in the future.
Issues in this area when left unchecked, can escalate into very costly and time consuming problems, which leave the organisation very exposed to claims under the Employment Equality Acts, 1997-2010 and the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977-2007.
Client C – contacted HR Compass seeking advice on Redundancy. We assisted the company by putting together a redundancy selection criteria to ensure that the process was transparent, and fair. We provided templates for the employer covering notice of redundancy and schedule of entitlements for the employees concerned. We also assisted the client through the various processes, from redundancy interviews to RP50 completion.
We also undertook a HR ‘Health Check’ for the company, to identify areas where the company could potentially be exposed for non compliance with legislation and standard employee policies and procedures.
Following this process we were asked by the client to draft up new Contracts of Employment for all employees and to produce a Staff Handbook detailing all the standard policies and procedures that any employer should have. For this process to be successful it is vital to have input from the Client and in some cases their employees.
We also provided training to a number of key staff within the company, so they could understand and implement all the policies and procedures where necessary.
Client D – client organisation with 15 employees asked us to provide Interim HR Management covering maternity leave.
The office manager, whose role also covered the HR function and Payroll for the company was going on 6 months maternity leave. We were asked to provide HR Cover for 2 days per month during this period.
Services provided during this period included –
- Operation of Payroll
- Assisting the client in recruitment of new sales staff
- Setting Performance Appraisal Templates
