Wetherby Golf Club
Doing HR yourself? Is it worth the risk?
Getting human resources right is a herculean task fraught with risk if you try to go it alone. Rules and regulations are forever changing. And no matter how good and competent your staff, there are always going to be issued, whether it’s sick pay, maternity leave, or letting someone go through redundancy among other factors.
Prior to engaging Golf HR Wetherby Golf Club adopted various ways of dealing with HR, including trying it themselves and working with a solicitor, none of which were satisfactory as General Manager Darren Tear explains.
“With the solicitor, we felt like a small fish in a big pond and didn’t always seem to get the correct information and we were always waiting for them to call us back.
“Then we tried to do it ourselves which is always very difficult.”
Darren realised that the club needed to tighten up their contracts and HR in general. He had been following Carolyne and Golf HR on LinkedIn, as had one of the club’s directors and had heard glowing reports about her from his local secretaries’ meeting.
“We wanted to make sure that we complied with all the legislation and that we were tribunal free. We are currently looking at producing new contracts for our staff, this is the foundation of every employment relationship. Getting them right is crucial.
“We’re working together on getting those contracts right for the current staff and for new staff coming in. It’s actually very emotive and we weren’t quite ready for that. A change in the odd word here and there, can change the way someone thought the job was sold to them initially. This is especially true with part-time staff. But we’re working together on rewording the contracts to get them right.”
One area of huge concern is training courses. We put greenkeepers on training courses that cost us quite a bit of money and then they’ve left us soon after the training courses have ended. So we are trying to write something into the contract that states they have to pay some of that training course back if they leave within 12 months or 24 months.”
Wetherby Golf Club is a new client of Golf HR and so far Darren is very happy with how the working relationship is developing and how having HR backup is helping him to do his job.
“It’s a more personal service and full support when you need it anytime. And you feel that the advice they give you is the right advice. They give me more confidence to approach situations in the right manner with the right information.”