Employee Rights: What You Need to Know

Many things can happen in the workplace. Some are positive, such as being offered a promotion or making friends out of colleagues. On other occasions, you might face situations that make you uncomfortable or fear to lose your job. While in some circumstances there might not be much you can do, it’s important to be aware of what your rights are as an employee.

Don’t let your boss or other senior staff members get away with illegal practices — here are some of the basics that you ought to know.

You Can Say No

The general attitude to getting by in the workplace is that you’re expected to say ‘yes’ to everything. It’s true that being an employee with a positive outlook who is a team player will be looked upon favorably. However, don’t make the mistake of thinking this means you have to carry out tasks that make you uncomfortable. While your job might challenge you from time to time, if you feel unsafe or insecure about doing something your boss has asked you to do, you have the right to say no.

Harassment

No one should be made to feel uncomfortable or upset in their place of work — not by their boss, and not by their colleagues, either. Harassment can come in differing forms: you might be receiving threats, or being constantly undermined and ridiculed. Or perhaps you feel as though someone at work is making inappropriate remarks to you of a sexual nature. If you feel as though you are being harassed, make a formal complaint to HR. If this procedure fails, you may have to seek legal action and take it further.

Training

You are entitled to receive adequate training for your job role. If you feel as though you need to learn more about your job, you have the right to ask your boss/manager to provide further learning programs for you. This might involve retaking previous training courses or using alternative learning methods.

Redundancy

There might come a time when the business you work for has to make some cut-backs. Unfortunately, this could result in you losing your job. If you are facing redundancy, or have recently been made redundant, the company you work for should give you a reasonable period of notice. You might also be entitled to some severance pay, although it is probably best to get some legal advice on redundancy to know fully what your entitlement is.

Discrimination

It is illegal for an employer to dismiss or treat certain employees differently due to their gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, or mental health. Naturally, some things may have to be altered to better suit a person’s circumstances, but these should always be discussed respectfully and agreed upon by both the employer and the employee. If you feel as though you are missing out on opportunities or targeted at work due to race, gender, etc., again, report it to HR and take it further if necessary.

If you’re unsure about a situation at work and what you can do, take the time to further research your employee rights for guidance.

How to Leverage Your Human Resources to Achieve Your Business Goals

Within a company, you have several assets. You have your liquid assets, your invested assets, and all the elements of your business that constitute your operational arms. But, perhaps most importantly, you have people – workers who are willing to graft for hours each week to work towards the goals you set in the board room. To leverage this all-important asset effectively, you need to work towards efficiency and productivity in your workforce, and this guide will explain how you can achieve that leap.

Managing Your Resources

Next up, you should consider how you’re organizing your workforce to get the best out of them every day. This is less about man-management and more about the structures that facilitate the efficient work of all your staff – and your ability to be flexible with workloads and projects. 

Using software developed to help HR departments can solve structural issues in your workforce, freeing up labor to work on different and more exciting projects. OKR software can help you not only organize your workforce but also spread tasks evenly between your employees – and translate goals drawn up in the board room to actionable smaller tasks for all your staff to rally around.

Motivation

Amongst workers, motivation is as important as skills and knowledge. The most motivated staff will solve problems without consulting a manager and will go the extra mile to get projects finished by their deadlines and to put in the extra hours to meet their targets. In contrast, demotivated staff are far less likely to pull towards a common goal – leading your business to lower efficiency and missed targets.

Motivating your staff can be difficult. It requires a blend of contractual benefits – like better pay and perks like healthcare – and managerial nous, which will help employees feel they’re valued on a personal level. Regarding the latter, if your managers can organize frequent meetings with the staff that works under them, they’ll be able to receive and give feedback – motivating staff to feel they’re being invested in by their superiors.

Incentives and Rewards

Finally, if you’re pushing to get your business to the next level, you’ll be setting ambitious targets that all of your workforce will be striving towards. Whether those targets involve sales figures, profit percentages, overhead cost reductions, or marketing successes, it’s important to set these goals – but also then offer incentives and rewards for staff when you manage to hit them. 

A reward can take many forms. An office party can help you celebrate when you hit the customer figures you’ve been aiming for, while an investment in your office environment, following a successful scale-up, can reward employees by improving the space in which they work. You should also consider personal rewards – like vouchers, pay rises, or company-wide recognition – for those whose work contributes the most to the realization of your business goals in 2020 and beyond.

Use these three tips to leverage your human resources for the good of your business, making your staff a key asset in your up-scaling and target-meeting.

Four Ways to Improve Your Relationships with Staff

As a founder, CEO, manager or overseer, it’s important to understand that you’re not only a role model and a motivational leader for staff – you’re also a person in whom they can confide and share. It’s in light of this secondary role that this article examines how you, as a manager or person of responsibility, can forge lasting, robust relationships with those who work with you.

With four key tips listed below, you’ll learn how to approach this delicate subject with wisdom and empathy, enabling your employees to feel listened to and accepted in your company.

Regular One-to-Ones

There can be no alternative to giving and receiving one-to-one feedback with all the members of staff that you’re responsible for. It’s in these private meetings that you’re able to put your colleagues at ease, and ask them to share their experiences, their struggles, and their feedback.

For your part, this is primarily a listening exercise – though by offering key feedback, including positive comments, you’ll be able to motivate your staff to perform better on a daily and weekly basis. This is a time to connect – so use it wisely and patiently to understand the needs of your staff that bit better.

Feedback Sheets

Another way to get to know your staff and to listen to their concerns is to run a staff survey in your office, asking your workforce a number of questions that you’ll be able to track over time to see where you’re improving and where things are beginning to slip. These work best when they’re digitized – like the surveys provided by Inpulse.com, which collate your feedback data into an easy-to-read summary for your reflection.

Feedback helps employers act better, and gives you a unique window into the satisfaction of your staff.

Team-Building

Sometimes, it’s difficult to meet staff on their level when you’re in the office – the hierarchical structure, and occasional discipline that you have to distribute, tends to set you apart slightly. Nonetheless, if you’re interested in getting over this barrier, an informal team-building trip can be just the ticket. Whether you decide to build a raft together to cross an icy lake, or head to a clue-solving escape room as a team of equals, these events are great opportunities to hear more about your staff in an informal and relaxed setting – while also helping them bond together to overcome challenges.

Rewards and Thanks

Most staff members put in the hours and the hard work to get the job done. They may not be the most zealous staff members you’ve ever worked with, but they’re devoted to their jobs, motivated by your leadership, and keen to deliver on the targets that you set for them.

As such, it’s important that you recognize those members of staff who really are throwing their weight behind their work – and here, it’s crucial that you reward and thank individuals and teams for their dogged and determined contributions – including with vouchers, nights out, or gift hampers.

There you have it – four key ways in which you can forge better relationships with your staff in 2020 and beyond.

Take A Load Off - Work Smarter

When you run a small business, you need to work harder… or do you? Working smarter can mean those dreams you had about spending more time with your family or doing the things you love are a reality. 

As a one-person business, you have to do a lot with the time that you have. There are a few ways that you can increase your output. You could opt to put in longer hours, or you can make your hours really count.

Photo by krisna iv on Unsplash

So here are a few tips that can make your time more productive. 

Deadlines

If you aren’t already setting deadlines, you are missing a trick. Adding deadlines to work means you are more likely to get things done in a good time. Parkinson’s Law means a task will take as long as the time you allow. 
So if there is no deadline, it is improbable to get finished as quickly as it could. Use your preferred calendar and add deadlines to everything. 

Field It Out

If you are spending a lot of time dealing with calls or managing your emails, it is time you gave that workout. You might think of this as a waste of your hard-earned cash, but actually, you can earn more in that time you typically use on calls and other admin. 

Live receptionist services and a virtual assistant will help you tackle the jobs that take up the time that doesn’t earn you money directly. 

No Notifications

If you have your phone in view, then every WhatsApp message or text is going to take your attention away from the work you should be doing. And when you stop in the middle of your work to respond, you are going to lose minutes. 

Not just the ones it takes you to reply. But you will lose 15-20 minutes of time every time you switch between tasks and need to refocus again. 

Deep Work

While there is a lot to be said for taking regular breaks, deep working is the new kid on the block. You can begin to practice your deep working by timing 30-minute slots. During those 30 minutes, you only work on a single task. 

Try to pick something that takes concentration and requires you to think actively. Over time you can ramp that up to around 90 minutes. You shouldn’t typically push beyond 90 minutes, though. As research finds that over 90 minutes, there is no extra focus or productivity. 

Multitasking

If you have, say, nine photos to schedule on your social media but are editing and uploading one by one. You are wasting a huge amount of time swapping between the tasks. Instead, switch to:

• Editing all the images

• Writing all of the captions

• Scheduling all of the photos on your chosen platform. 

So performing similar tasks at the same time. Commit to single tasks before moving on to anything else. 

Perfection…? 

We all get very hung up and absorbed in the little details. And while we should all strive to achieve our best, if you are always looking for perfection, things become much more difficult. Perfection, to some degree, is an illusion. 

Aim to meet each task to the very best of your ability and allow time, in the end, to neaten up edit and ‘perfect.’ 

Eat The Frog

If you put off the tasks you don’t want to do until the end of the day - it will always take longer than it should. So first thing in the morning, do the tasks that you least want to get done. Eat the frog, and move on. 

This leaves no space in your brain for that task to occupy, and you can concentrate fully on other tasks. 

Time Track

If you feel like you are spending too much time on some tasks - the chances are you are. So start tracking your time for a few weeks and see if you can improve those times. 

Consider the time that you want to close your computer - and get your to-do list done before that time. 

Breaks

Yes, it is important to work, but you can’t work at full capacity if you aren’t taking breaks regularly. Rather than take random breaks as and when factor them into your day. This will allow you to have lots of time that you are high performing. 

The Pomodoro method is ideal for people who want to build focus time and breaks into their day. 

Always look to increase productivity - not extend your working hours.