HR Essentials

18/12/2020

09/11/2020

Head on over to our website today to select which cost effective package is best for your business!

http://www.hr-essentials.co.uk/

05/11/2020

The furlough scheme will be extended until the end of March, the chancellor has announced.

04/11/2020

A decision by many employers not to top up furlough pay has contributed to 2,043,000 employees being paid less than the national minimum wage (NMW), according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This number is the highest on record since the NMW came into force in 1999, and is a five-fold rise on the 409,000 workers who were paid less than the NMW in 2019.

Even after excluding those employees furloughed at reduced rates of pay, the ONS found the number of people paid less than the NMW had soared to 752,000 in the space of a year. This also meant more than a million workers received less than the NMW as a result of their employer not topping up the minimum 80 per cent rate they were entitled to while furloughed.

02/11/2020

As part of the government’s announcement of a second nationwide lockdown in England over the weekend, the chancellor has paused the launch of the job support scheme and instead extended the original furlough scheme for another month to support employers affected by new instructions for non-essential businesses to close for a month.

On the surface, the extension is simple. The scheme will now run until the beginning of December, offering the same level of support that was available in August. As such, the government will provide 80 per cent of furloughed workers’ wages up to a cap of £2,500 a month, with businesses only expected to pay national insurance and pension contributions. There is also – similarly to the last few months – a flexible option available. Employers are allowed to claim furlough grants just for the time that employees are not working, and there are no minimum working hours required.

But the last minute nature of the extension announcement has – despite its seeming simplicity – created a confusing situation for employers to now get to grips with, says Simon Jones, director of Ariadne Associates. “While extending the furlough scheme is a good idea, it’s not helpful to make the decision on the day it was due to expire,” he says.

31/10/2020

Happy Halloween 🎃

22/10/2020

The chancellor is to announce more support for firms and workers facing tier 2 coronavirus restrictions.

19/10/2020

HR policies and procedures are important to businesses as they provide structure, control, consistency, reasonableness, and fairness to all employees.

Why are HR policies important? HR policies and procedures are important to businesses as they provide structure, control, consistency, reasonableness, and fairness to all employees. They ensure compliance with employment legislation and let employees know what the company responsibilities are and wh...

12/10/2020

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is now a legal requirement for some organisations to collect customer, visitor and staff contact details for contact tracing purposes.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is now a legal requirement for some organisations to collect customer, visitor and staff contact details for contact tracing purposes. Businesses have had to adhere to strict measures to ensure they are keeping customers and staff safe. They are also being asked t...

09/10/2020

Is it worth applying to the job support scheme?

What are the benefits of using the scheme, and when should companies consider it over redundancies? And crucially, why not just save money by reducing workers’ hours without topping up their wages through the scheme? People Management spoke to experts to get their take...

05/10/2020

Employers will be paid a job retention bonus of £1,000 for each employee they bring back to work from furlough leave between November 2020 and January 2021.

https://www.hr-essentials.co.uk/job-retention-bonus/

30/09/2020

Introducing Essentials 3