HR Consultancy

The keys to managing absence are fairness, consistency and being proactive. It is when one or more of these key requirements fall down that problems occur and either company absence rates or individual issues become much bigger and more costly than they need to be.

All documentation we provide such as ‘capability’ policies, letters, or ‘access to medical reports’ documentation are either ACAS or CIPD approved so you can be sure they will be professional, compliant and effective. 

Please also see our Practical Guide to Managing Absence

In conjunction with your legal advisers we can carry out the HR due diligence for any acquisitions you make, adding legal HR expertise in this area and saving you money in solicitors fees.

Peter has managed the TUPE process for numerous transfers of employees into parent companies, including tricky issues such as associated redundancy programmes, relocations and changes to terms and conditions.

Buy in from the senior team is crucial with any Change programme so the start point is to agree the type of organisation you want to develop in to, then compare that to the current state via an employee survey. This will identify the gaps for us to work on and build a programme between us that achieves your goals.

Peter is a ‘Korn Ferry Architect’ qualified practitioner and can guide you through the process of implementing this excellent tool in your organisation. He has also worked with numerous different competency frameworks over the years and will be able to help you to really get the most from an existing framework if you have one, whether you wish to use it to improve recruitment, development, succession planning or performance in general. 

A HR audit can be invaluable in ensuring you have the right policies and practices in place. We have an audit process that covers all bases and will then help you develop policies for any gaps, from individual policies through to what to do in the event of a Dawn Raid by the authorities.

Peter, having managed compliance including HR and other legal requirements for a large company in the past, can also help you put together a framework to ensure compliance with legal requirements around consumer protection, competition law, health & safety etc.

It is a legal requirement to provide either a ‘Written Statement of Employment Particulars’ or an employment contract to every employee. Whichever option is most relevant for your needs, 186hr can provide a fully legally compliant document with numerous options to choose from regarding what clauses are appropriate for your organisation to include.

So whether you wish to include bonus details, Garden Leave clauses, Restrictive Covenants that prevent leavers from taking customers or staff with them ….. we can provide relevant, legally enforceable wording so your contract achieves what your company needs it to.

Our documentation is updated annually by a specialist employment law solicitor so you can be sure it is compliant with current legislation.

Please also see our Practical Guide to Contracts of Employment

We can provide help, advice, or even a script for a ‘Protected Conversation’ where you need to part company with an individual but may not have started any formal processes with them. We would also put together a legally compliant and binding Settlement Agreement and negotiate with solicitors on your behalf if required.

Tribunals expect organisations to comply with the ACAS Code of Practice when taking disciplinary action. All of our advice and documentation is in line with their requirements.

Whether you need us advise on, or carry out on your behalf, any part of the process all of the documentation we provide is either ACAS or CIPD approved so you can be sure it will be professional, compliant and effective. 

Please also see our Practical Guide to Disciplinary Action

Employee surveys are a crucial tool to ensure you know how committed the team is to your goals, values and the company in general. It also gives you useful feedback into management effectiveness and much more.

The results help us to identify specific actions that will help improve the organisation’s culture and people management. We often combine this with management questionnaires and robust exit interviews to really get know the organisation’s strengths to build on and also tackle any development areas.

This would normally start with a presentation to the senior team to get buy in to the issue and agree a high-level plan. The presentation will be based on your specific pay gap and that of your competitors, that we will have researched beforehand, and covers the actions that have been proven to reduce the GPG of UK companies. We will then agree which specific actions are appropriate for your organisation now and in the future and put a plan together. 

You will be fully supported throughout the rollout, or we can manage it for you.

Tribunals require organisations to comply with the ACAS Code of Practice when investigating grievances and considering the appropriate outcome. All of our advice and documentation is in line with their requirements.

Whether you need us advise on, or carry out on your behalf, any part of the process all of the documentation we provide is either ACAS or CIPD approved so you can be sure it will be professional, compliant and effective. 

Please also see our Practical Guide to Managing Grievances

We can offer advice and support on issues such as grievances, disciplinaries, absence, managing poor performers, flexible working, maternity rights etc.

We can carry out investigations on your behalf, or if you need an independent person to make a disciplinary, grievance or appeal decision we can act in that capacity.

Although a great many managers often don’t tackle poor performance until they have got to the end of their tether and want to part company with the individual, at 186hr we have developed a process that is quite straightforward and has been used by several organisations to improve individual performance where required.

The process, which has led to organisations tackling poor performance more effectively and much sooner, moves seamlessly from the individual failing to hit goals / target through the middle stage of pre-disciplinary action, then disciplinary action and dismissal if the individual doesn’t improve sufficiently.

All disciplinary documentation we provide are either ACAS or CIPD approved so you can be sure they will be professional, compliant and effective. 

Please also see our Practical Guide to Managing Poor Performers

Recruitment, including job descriptions, people specifications, structured interviews,  psychometric testing (Peter is BPS Level 2 qualified) and assessment centres.

Redundancies, ether largescale or small scale. Having managed over 30 redundancy programmes we are ideally placed to help you manage redundancies in a fair, compliant, but cost effective way whilst also ensuring that those who remain receive the appropriate communication and reassurance to help them remain settled and continue to perform.

We can also carry out outplacement support to help and coach those employees who are leaving to find their next role (see ‘Managing Redundancies and the Consultation Process’ in the Training section for more details of the support we can offer).

Please also see our Practical Guide to Managing Redundancies

This would normally start with us carrying out some Organisation Design work to help you decide the optimum departmental structure for you to achieve your company goals, and then supporting you through implementation of the structure to ensure you get the right people in the right roles.

Formerly known as Compromise Agreements, we can advise regarding Settlement negotiations and content of the Agreement, and put the required documentation together whether as part of a Protected Conversation, Without Prejudice conversation, redundancy discussion or other exit where you wish to agree leaving terms but also protect the company against legal action.