Human Resources

People are essential to most businesses, especially your people that have key skills or occupy senior management positions.  It is always a good idea to identify critical staff and have a clear understanding of what you would do to replace or supplement them if needed.
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Human Resources Articles

Drug Driving Law in the UK

Our friends at Cassey Miller James insurance brokers have recently issued guidance on the new UK Drug Driving law that will be introduced 2nd March 2015. Please take note of the advice to employers: New Stricter Drug Driving Law Starts in March On 2 March 2015, the government’s new, zero-tolerance drug driving law goes into…

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Keyman Insurance explained

What would the impact be on your business if you lost a key person through severe illness, injury or even death?  Would you have the financial strength to replace that key member of your team?  Can they actually be replaced?  If they can be replaced how much would that cost and how long would it take?…

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Surprises Are the New Normal; Resilience Is the New Skill

This insightful article by Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School teaches us so much about Organisational and Individual Resilience.  Too many companies focus their planning on purely physical risks and resilience without taking time to consider their organisational Resilience. Please click on the image to read the full article.   To discuss Organisational…

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Identifying threats to your business

Thanks to Travelers insurance in the USA for this simple but effective guide to Identifying threats to your business. Travelers Insurance Guide to Identifying threats to your business It is always great to see large insurance companies (with extensive marketing budgets) take an active role in promoting Business Continuity.  Yes they have a vested interest…

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Human Resources FAQs

How do I know what the impact would be on my business if I lost individuals or teams due to a disaster?

The traditional way to map dependencies on teams and individuals would be to conduct a Business Impact Assessment (BIA) as a part of your Business Continuity Planning process.  However for smaller organisations you may want to start by drawing up your organisation chart and then noting against each person/team what the impact would be of losing them (without notice)

What can I do to make my business more resilient from a Human Resources perspective?

There are a number of strategies to employ to increase Human Resources resilience and these include cross training staff in different roles, building teams across different geographical locations, automating manual processes, outsourcing functions to larger specialists etc.

All decisions in our company are made by our CEO, what would happen to us if he died suddenly or was incapacitated?

This is a common problem, especially in owner managed businesses and may have to be delicately managed.  Try getting the management team together for a Risk Workshop and go around the table asking managers to identify risks the business faces and discuss each point.  At the appropriate moment raise the risk of the CEO making all the decisions and let the team discuss the point.  Hopefully the CEO will recognise that he/she represents a risk to the future of the company and will perhaps delegate more to the management team as a result.

Is it possible to insure against the costs of replacing important members of our management team?

Keyman insurance is widely available from most insurers and is essentially a Life Insurance / Critical Illness policy taken out by your business on the life of key staff members.  The purpose of the policy is to give the business sufficient funds to replace key members of staff if they die or become terminally ill.

How do I make sure our standard employment contract covers employee behaviour on Social Media?

The first point to make is that there is currently no specific regulation of Social Media in the UK so existing Employment and Data Protection laws apply, so make sure to focus on having robust internal policies.  We can put you in touch with employment law specialists who can review your standard contracts and amend as necessary to make sure you are covered and your approach is reasonable.  For example what rights can you contractually assert over your employees LinkedIn contacts that they acquired during your employment, when they leave the company?