Legal health check
Are you compliant in all the areas that you should be? How can you know?
Go Legal will give you a free initial consultation to find out from you what you think you need. That need established it’s time to move on to the legal health check.
The legal health check will examine the temperature, pulse and blood pressure of your business. It’ll look to see if your policies and procedures are up-to-date. If they’re not you could find yourself facing an expensive tribunal.
Go-Legal for peace of mind
Review and advise
When I review your current HR documents I’ll look for:
- The right employment documentation
- Compliance of said documentation with the legal minimum requirements.
The health check covers:
- Policies and procedures
- Contracts of employment
- Employment handbook
- HR procedures and administrative documentation.
Full check-up – full report
The full health check takes up to one day and is chargeable at the Go Legal standard daily rate. Included with that is a detailed report that will outline the actions required to attain full compliance with employee legislation. Isn’t your business worth that insight?
It’s all done for you
With the health-check done I’ll deal with anything that needs an update or a rewrite. I’ll work with you to make sure that:
- Your employee documentation stays current
- Your employees are made aware of their obligations: both as employees and as managers
Don’t put your business at risk. Get in touch and book your full business diagnostic examination now.
Contracts of employment
There are two key steps to take to reduce the likelihood of disputes arising and thus protecting your business:
- Have in place clearly documented employment terms
- Have associated policies and procedures
These will set the stage and provide clear boundaries for employees.
Because I’m an expert in HR documentation I can solve your pain and create them for you. It’s inevitable that, from time to time, positions within your organisation will change.
Policies & Procedures
Employment legislation is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up. If you feel all at sea with it you’re not on your own. Fear not. Go Legal is here to help.
I’ll create for you a full set of up-to-date, and legally compliant, policies and procedures.
A typical/minimum set of Policies and procedures would include:
- Absence Management
- Discipline
- Grievance
- Equal Opportunities
- Harassment & Bullying
- Family Friendly (including Maternity)
- Holidays
- Whistleblowing
- Drugs & alcohol
- Bribery
- Data Protection
- Social Media
- Redundancy
There are a whole range of other policies that can be created to reflect the needs of your business and ensure you have the correct set of policies and procedures
Take advantage of our support service for regular and timely updates as needed.
Employee handbooks
The employee handbook is not, in itself, a legal requirement, but it is your legal requirement to manage your employees in accordance with current laws and legislation. Which is where the value of the employee handbook lies. If constructed with care it supports your contract of employment. And it lays out the expected requirements of employees against your needs as an employer.
For the majority of small businesses an employee handbook is all they need to communicate to their staff what their rights are and what rights you have as their employer.
That said, it can happen that a business develops specific needs. It might be that regular sickness absence is an issue – in which case you need a sickness absence policy and procedure. Or are you making a transition from small to medium sized business? In such a situation, you’ll have outgrown your current employee handbook.
If this or any of the statements below resonate with you then Go Legal is your go-to virtual HR adviser.
Data Protection
The Data Protection Act controls how your personal information is used by organisations, businesses or the government.
If you’re responsible for using data you need to be aware of the strict rules you have to follow. Called data protection principles they are designed to make sure the information is:
- Fairly and lawfully used
- Used for limited and specifically stated purposes
- Used in a way that is adequate, relevant and not to excess
- Accurate
- Kept for no longer than is absolutely necessary
- Handled in accordance with people’s right to data protection
- Securely stored
- Not transferred, without adequate protection in place, beyond the European Economic Area
General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)
The legal requirements regarding Data Protection in the UK have not been amended since the Data Protection Act in 1998. Now all is about to change with the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in May 2018.
This is a piece of European Legislation affecting all members of the European Union and even though we have the Brexit process set to take us out of the EU, this legislation will apply to the UK not just whilst we remain a member of the EU, but its provisions are expected to be adopted within whatever range of legislation we retain post-Brexit.
The GDPR regulations have potentially far reaching consequences for small to medium size businesses who may not currently have an issue with Data protection and/or Data processing, but who are unlikely to be compliant with the new regulations as things stand at present.
If you would like to ensure you are compliant with GDPR or at least know what is required to become compliant, invite GO Legal HR an audit of your current Data Protection practices. We can quickly compare this to the requirements under the new act to at least ensure you are aware of any gaps and what the consequences of a breach of the new act may involve.