People Matter – November 2024

What’s up with using WhatsApp at work?

WhatsApp is so popular and so convenient, that in many workplaces it has become a default channel for some communications. But hold on one minute! For all its convenience, it carries a fair amount of HR risk.

Just this Autumn, a shop steward at Iceland was awarded €8,300 at a Labour Court, which heard of intrusive WhatsApp messages about proposed strike action being sent out of hours.

You have got blurred lines between personal life and work life; an accepted degree of informality which can lead to inappropriateness; and a reduced or zero ability to monitor communications if they are on private accounts.

Consider reputational damage. In the UK, the public inquiry into events surrounding serial killer Lucy Letby’s crimes is currently being reported on. Earlier this month, the enquiry heard evidence that a colleague had joked regarding sharing tips on getting away with murder in a WhatsApp conversation with Letby. This was a full year after concerns had first been raised about the danger she may have posed. It reflects badly on both individuals and the organisation.

Whether it is the perceived privacy, the informality or something else, left unchecked WhatsApp is a problem. Sexual harassment is another danger.

Thankfully (because WhatsApp is useful for many businesses), you can take measures to protect yourself through the creation and sharing of policies, and potentially training.

Include acceptable WhatsApp usage in your social media policy, and if staff use their own devices, a bring-your-own-device policy can set expectations on these. Ensure these policies are shared with everyone at reasonable intervals, and log this and any training, too. This makes it easier for you, where any breaches occur, to instigate appropriate disciplinary procedures.

For any help with policy preparation or disciplinary support, please get in touch.

Do your employees suffer from financial stress?

We all know that managing finances can be stressful, especially if you are a business owner. Nearly half of Irish workers said they felt financial stress, according to research by a technology company.

Stress in any form can lead to lower productivity, mistakes and absence and that’s when other people’s concerns can start to cost you, so for everyone’s sake it is worth giving it some attention.

As a useful comparison, a different survey, this time from a mental health charity in the UK, calculated the overall cost to UK employers to be £1,035 per employee, comprising £335 for absenteeism, £605 for presenteeism and £95 for staff turnover.

Of course, most SMEs cannot simply throw money at employees – we know how tight cash is for many employers.

By the time absences are registering, it is already costing you (and your employees through anguish). A sustainable approach is to facilitate coaching and education. Partnering with a charity or support organisation is one idea, for example MABS, who provide free resources and support on a range of money issues.

Local independent financial adviser firms may offer lunch and learns too (with the prospect of gaining some new clients), or some kind of drop-in sessions if they are looking after your pension scheme, so there are options if you seek them out.

Another value option is to review your employee benefits package. There are always new products coming on to the market which can help. Including a benefit which provides high street store discounts, a health cash plan which contributes money towards medical treatments or death in service benefits can offer excellent value for everyone. If you are interested in a review, please just ask.

Unfair dismissals

Unfair dismissal is a term bandied around, but do you actually know what it refers to technically?

There are some reasons you may dismiss people for, which are automatically considered unfair. These include trade union activities; religious/political opinions and other protected grounds including race and pregnancy; unfair selection for redundancy, availing statutory rights like force majeure leave and making a protected disclosure.

Unfair dismissal can potentially be triggered either by you terminating a contract of employment with or without notice, or if an employee ends their contract of employment with or without notice due to your conduct. This is known as constructive dismissal.

However, dismissal because of capability, competence, lacking qualifications, poor conduct, properly implemented redundancy or because an employee can no longer legally work (say they incur a driving ban and their role involves driving).

In most cases, employees must have 12 months’ continuous service in order to bring an unfair dismissal claim, but there are several exceptions to this, including if a dismissal is related to pregnancy.

If you need to dismiss someone and want to ensure you do it fairly, please reach out to us first and we can guide you through the process.

Managing side hustles

What are your thoughts on side hustles – those extra income streams that some employees may have outside of work?

On the plus side, they may make a big difference to any hard-pressed staff struggling to make ends meet on their remuneration from you; and/or be a boost to mental health by easing financial stress (see financial stress article above) or being a creative outlet.

However, there is plenty of potential downside, too: from leading to burnout through extra hours worked, to the risk of reputational damage due to the nature of the side hustle. Other risks include a potential drop in productivity or even competition issues if the employee is offering the same service they perform for you on the side.

In one eye-catching recent constructive dismissal case in the UK, a police body was ordered to pay a former sergeant £1.1 million in compensation after they ordered her to cease a side hustle she was operating whilst on sick leave.

Her side business was providing decorated party tents for events, and she had been advised to take up creative hobbies by occupational health as a counter-balance to her intense role in the police dealing with child sexual exploitation and drug exploitation. Initially permitted by her employers to do this, she was ordered to cease the activities while on a period of long-term sick leave.

It was a complicated case, but shows the fine line that you may need to walk if you have an employee with a side hustle. A good place for any business to start is to make it clear what is and isn’t acceptable within your terms and conditions of employment. We can help you think through the issues for your business and come up with suitable wording if you want a review, or don’t have a policy in place.

An inspector calls

As frustrating as it may be to have members of your team off on long-term sickness absences, there are right and wrong ways to deal with it. The distinction may not always be obvious and that is something we help our clients with, reaching pragmatic decisions in the business’s best interest.

Many, though, will agree that a step too far (except maybe in some extreme cases), is to start paying surprise home inspections to those who are unwell, checking up on their fitness to work. According to the news, in Germany, Tesla is currently embroiled in a row with unions for doing just this.

Any business will want to bring a level of robustness to absence management, but unless for good reason, such inspections smack of a breakdown of trust between employee and employer. The reports on the story suggest that Tesla has key statistics to show that some of their absence isn’t genuine, whilst they are accused of poor general working conditions, overly long working hours and insufficient health and safety measures.

If you are suffering from significant long-term sickness absence in your business, by which we mean anyone away for four weeks or more, getting medical advice as to how to get the employee back to work is essential. Get in touch for help if you need it.

Dealing with workplace “icks”

What’s worse: microwaving a fish lunch in the office kitchen or gossiping about colleagues? It’s probably down to personal choice; although while there is no “law” against microwaving aquatic lunches (there should be), a colleague could easily breach a disciplinary policy with malicious or persistent gossip.

Other common “icks” include taking smoking or vaping breaks (and bringing the odours back in), leaving expired food in the fridge and bringing a stinking cold into the office. Generally, many of these kinds of behaviours can be avoided by instilling a good culture within your business. But it is essential to have this backed up with written policies which everyone is familiar with.