Imagine this: an employee has taken you to tribunal.

And then, with the tribunal settled, they ask the Court of Appeal to withhold the tribunal ruling from the public register because the details are “embarrassing”.

Are they allowed to do this?

Well, here’s what happened recently in the case of L v Q.

In L v Q Ltd 2019 L had brought claims of disability discrimination, harassment and victimisation against his employer, Q Ltd (Q).

At the final hearing, L’s solicitors asked for the tribunal’s judgment to be anonymised and withheld from the public register. They submitted that L was embarrassed about aspects of his case and disability.

When the tribunal agreed to do this, Q appealed.

The Court of Appeal decided that, save for cases involving national security, there’s no explicit power to prohibit the publication of a judgment on the register.

The Court said that case details should not be edited to prevent potential embarrassment – whilst this can be unfortunate, all information should be available to assist readers in understanding the case.

However, the parties can be anonymised, but only where it’s deemed genuinely necessary.

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As I have grown older and financially independent able to buy my own gadgets, the joy of getting Christmas presents is now a little bit muted.

Maybe you feel the same?

Giving gifts is still immensely enjoyable, but most of the things I want I am in the lucky position that I can just go out and buy.

So, I was blown away by my present from South Oxfordshire District Council.

Yes, a PRESENT from my local council.

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We had an interesting one this week.

An ex-employee at one of our clients has she decided she wants her image to be removed from all company social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the websites, quoting GDPR and the “right to be forgotten” at them.

Our client was not best pleased, as there are hundreds of images to trawl through to remove her.

And – make no mistake – he does have to do this, but if he had taken action earlier, he’d have been able to avoid it.

What he needed to do was the equivalent of a talent release form in the acting industry.

Get your employees to sign the “Consent to use of employee image” form (we can provide you with this).

Once they’ve signed it, they’ll have consented to having their images used on your social media and promotional materials.

They can remove that permission at any stage, but NOT retrospectively.

So you would not have to remove their image from wherever it already is (although if they have left, taking them off the “meet our team” section of the website makes sense), but you would not be able to use it again going forward.

We strongly recommend that you use the form to avoid the hassle – all of our clients will automatically be sent this, and it is a standard part of our standalone GDPR for employees pack (£95 plus VAT).

Send me an email or give me a call if you are interested!

We moved offices back in the summer, and now we’ve “sorted things out”, we want to throw an office warming!

On Friday 6^th December, 5pm  –  8pm, there is a Christmas Late Night Opening evening in Goring-on-Thames, and our office is right in the centre, so we’re taking the opportunity to crack open some bubbles.

Come along, meet the team and see our amazing Sky Panels!

Don’t worry, we won’t be boring you with HR – instead we’ve got Prosecco, Lebkuchen and glow sticks – what more could you want?!

There is parking in the village, and we’re also only 5 minutes walk from the train station.

Let us know if you can make it so that we have enough fizzy for everyone!

Look forward to seeing you on the evening!

P.S. Here’s the address:

Gap HR Services Ltd, 7 The Arcade, High Street, Goring on Thames, RG8 9AY

 

I was speaking to a golf club chairman last week, and we got onto the subject of contracts; specifically the contract for the club manager.

Turns out that the chairman didn’t want to put a salary in the contract, and that “back in the day”, when he ran a business, he NEVER put the salary in the contract, only in the offer letter.

In his eyes, it meant that he could change the salary whenever he wanted, and he was pleased as punch with this strategy.

Unfortunately, it’s not a good strategy.

Anything that you put in the offer letter overrides the contents of the contract, and is as legally binding as the contract itself.

This exactly why we advise our clients to keep the offer letter to a minimum to avoid conflicts with the contract.

We convinced the chairman that this is how it is done now, and he went along with us.

Beware of good intentioned committee members giving you dangerous advice!

There are times in life where less is more.

For example, after you’ve said something nice like “I really enjoy your sense of humour” it’s probably best not to follow it with “…I don’t care what anyone else says about you!”.

The same goes for unpleasant conversations like firing an employee for poor performance.

One of our clients had an employee who was under 2 years’ service.

In fact, he had only been there for 4 months.

His performance wasn’t great, and demand for the company’s product had dropped off, so it was a straightforward decision to let him go.

And if an employee has been with you for less than two years, they don’t have any legal protection from unfair dismissal.

Which means that as long as they are dismissed for a reason that is not a “protected characteristic” then they have no claim against you.

All you have to do is say:

 “Dave, really sorry, but it is not working out, your performance is not where we would like it to be and we have had a downturn in sales, so I am really sorry but we are giving you your notice”

Then you just pay him his week’s notice, which he would not be expected to work.

The more objective reasons you have for ending their job, the easier the conversation.

Anyway, the client sat down to talk to Dave and said all the above.

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