Let's Talk

Author: Blue Tree HR

Working with an apprentice…. What you need to know

Posted on by Blue Tree HR

[vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]

As well as providing quality HR services and solutions, we at Blue Tree HR Solutions also provide insight into matters that may affect your business. In this blog, we take a look at apprenticeships.

With 16-year-olds now legally required to stay in some form of education until they are 18, and with the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy, apprenticeship schemes are a popular choice for young people and business owners alike.

So, what do you need to consider?

  • Training
  • Contracts of employment
  • Salary
  • Employment law
  • Managing expectations

There are many apprenticeship scheme providers who will support businesses with the provision of training – these ensure you have the apprentice attending relevant training and will achieve a registered qualification. So, having that part sorted – what do you need to do in the workplace?

Contracts of employment

All employees should have a contract of employment and apprentices will require a specific apprentice contract.  This will state all the terms of employment as well as your expectations of them during their training course.

An apprenticeship contract is generally a temporary contract – the time depends on the course provided and the qualification being achieved.

Salary

The current minimum wage rate in the UK for an apprentice is £3.70 per hour (2018), increasing to £3.90 (April 2019), this is the legal minimum. This rate applies to apprentices under 19 and those aged 19 or over who are in their first year. Apprentices must be paid at least the minimum wage rate for their age if they are an apprentice aged 19 or over and have completed their first year.

However, you will need to consider if you are paying them correctly to avoid failing to meet the minimum wage requirements.

  • Any overtime will need to be paid
  • Travel time to a different place of work will need to be covered i.e. If you are a mobile business such as a videographer or care worker.

Employment law regarding Young Persons (Under 18)

Making sure you avoid infringement of employment law is vital.  One set of regulations that is quite different for young people is the Working Time Directive:

  1. Young people must not work for more than eight hours a day and 40 hours each week.
  2. Generally, night work is not allowed for young people.
  3. Legally require rest breaks and rest periods must be granted.

With regards to health and safety, a risk assessment will be required to decide whether additional steps need to be taken to control the risks to young people and regulations specifically state that you must not employ a young person for certain types of hazardous work.

Managing Expectations

Having just taken on your apprentice – this person who has recently left school and has very limited work experience – how do you progress to a good working relationship with a valued member of staff who can be trusted and relied upon?

Firstly – be prepared for their first days and make a plan for their induction period.  Who will they work with, report to, what do they need to do, follow?  Make a good first impression with your new staff and you will reap benefits.

Make sure they know exactly what you need them to do and how you want them to do it. 

The key is having regular catch-up meetings and reviewing your apprentices’ progress throughout their employment.  Providing regular feedback is imperative.  Generation Zers (under 22-year-olds) have grown up in a world with constant feedback, star charts and reports.  For them to know what you expect and having feedback is fundamental to forming a good working relationship.

Why bother?

Employers have to invest a lot of time and money in apprenticeship programmes, the good news is – when done correctly it will provide a positive impact.

Having apprentices is a great way to grow your team while keeping staff costs down and the training providers help you with the entire process this includes recruiting an apprentice, customising a training programme and accessing funding.

Also, it’s a great way to provide your team with new skills and energy at the same time as giving a young person a career opportunity.

Please get in touch if you have any questions regarding managing young people in the workplace, or have any other queries that could benefit from expert HR advice for small businesses. As the best freelance HR consultant Essex can offer, we also specialise in ad hoc HR and retained HR support for small businesses.

Contact Us

Drawing a line in the Sand – Managing Employee behaviour in the workplace

Posted on by Blue Tree HR

As the best freelance HR consultant Essex can offer you, delivering expert HR advice for small businesses, I often hear of a common problem in many businesses: Employees ignoring the rules and consequently, this becoming the accepted norm. Situations where before you know it everyone has a complete disregard for an established rule. Managers want to know, how do you deal with this kind of problem?

Every workplace has its own basic work rules.  Simple rules are in place, such as – no phones in the office or all expense forms must be in by the end of the month.  It seems that managers often find it easier to deal with the ‘bigger issues’, probably as these are deemed to be more important and turn a blind eye to the smaller rules as they don’t seem to be significant.

All it takes is one person to get away with disrespect for the rules.  Then the next day somebody else will give it a try and if the manager/supervisor says nothing then it seems accepted.  Before you know it, you have everyone thinking this is OK and the manager is thinking – “they’ve been doing it for so long now, I don’t know how to deal with it”.

Sometimes rules get relaxed when times aren’t busy i.e. looking on social media, or maybe the kitchen was out of action so everyone sat at their desks to eat.  This then becomes a habit and is tolerated.  It can appear to be nit-picking to deal with these issues, but in my experience managers can find the little things like these are frustrating.

Clearly, in these situations, it is always best to nip it in the bud.  For example, if somebody doesn’t follow the rules then the manager should address it with a quiet word in their ear and hopefully, that will be the end of it.  But when you have everyone sitting at their desks eating their lunch again with a sign on the wall saying ‘NO Food in the Office’. Today you say something, when it has been ignored previously, people will probably assume you are ‘having a bad day’!

This is where your management skills and the HR policy that is collecting dust in the corner come in handy!

It’s time to ‘draw a line in the sand’.  Firstly remind everyone of the rules, and show everyone the relevant policy if there is one.  Tell them that from a set date this rule will be enforced.  From the set date forward, anyone disobeying the rule will be dealt with accordingly.  Make the consequences clear, for example, anyone leaving early will have pay deducted, or anyone handing their expenses form in late will not be reimbursed until the following month.  In certain circumstances, the disciplinary policy will be necessary and anyone seen to be disobeying the rules after the set date will be dealt with through the documented process, and where necessary given a formal warning.

Say what you are going to do, then do what you say.

Managers must do what they say you have committed to doing.  Follow through with the consequences, as promised. In most circumstances, you won’t have to do it more than a couple of times, as word will spread.

It may seem like you are managing children at times, but if you have a rule in place and you still want it to be respected then don’t be afraid to deal with it.  The rule would have been put in place for a reason.  If you are the manager it’s OK to tell staff how you expect them to perform/behave at work.  As a manager, you are expected to take control and you will gain respect from staff if you are seen to take charge.

If the rule no longer seems relevant or is unnecessary, you may consider having a consultation with your staff.  Maybe you can find a compromise that suits everyone.  The main point is don’t let small problems fester and become a big irritation. For more on our expert HR advice for small businesses, including both ad hoc HR support and retained HR support, contact Blue Tree HR Solutions.

What’s with the Blue Tree???

Posted on by Blue Tree HR

Why Blue Tree?

I am regularly asked, “What’s with the Blue Tree?” “Why is the company named Blue Tree?”

I suppose it is a bit like naming a child, in the respect that it is a very big decision and one that you and anyone involved have to live with.

There’s lots of advice out there, telling you how to choose a name.   The main point I was told, a business name should be something easy to remember.  I was once asked, “Don’t think of a Blue Tree.”  Our brain works in such a way that I was then imagining one! So that was my first Blue Tree thought.

Thinking about an HR business – yes, it’s serious business and you want to promote a highly professional image, but what is HR really about?  The part about Human Resources management that I think is most important is the growing, developing and nurturing of employees.

I went to an HR seminar run by the CIPD years ago, and there was a presentation that stuck with me.  The HR head for Google was presenting and he said that his/their philosophy on the purpose of HR was

‘Find Them, Grow Them, Keep Them’.

Of course, he was talking about the people/employees who are the heart of any business.

This is all about the growth of a business – building a team, developing the team and then retaining them.

I wanted our business to symbolise growth and this made me think of a tree.  Growing from small acorns or seeds into a possible massive proud structure which weathers many storms.

Blue is deemed to be nurturing colour and it is also my favourite colour!

At the end of the day, the company name is not important.  It’s our professional service and ongoing commitment to providing good HR services to our clients, but it’s always good to hear the back story.

And so there we have it…. Blue Tree HR, offering expert HR advice for small businesses, was born!

Fast forward to today and we believe we are the best freelance HR consultant Essex can boast, offering an array of HR services and support, including ad hoc HR and retained HR support for small businesses!

Does the word ‘Holiday’ give you a headache?

Posted on by Blue Tree HR

[vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Do you have employees?

If yes, you will know the thing they are most precious about is their holiday, and rightly so. We all look forward to our days off, whether we are wanting to laze in the sun, take part in some kind of adventure, take time for hobbies or just sort the garden out. Spending time with our friends and loved ones, or even time away from people altogether is our reward for having to get up and go to work every day.

People have to meticulously plan their allocated 20-something days – juggling school holidays and saving time for poorly children, school sports days or possible household emergencies, family dramas, that Wednesday wedding, taking the pet to the vet etc…

You also have the ‘dedicated to the desk’ types, who get to the end of the year and have not used their compulsory 20 days, they are really needed for the next month, but you need them to take time off to comply with the Working Time Directive.

Registering annual leave requests, logging time taken, ensuring the whole team is not all out at once, requests for changes to already booked holidays, as well as the last minute requests, can be frustrating for managers and employers. That’s not including the dreaded holiday calculation for part-timers, all of this can be an administrative headache.

By offering expert HR advice for small businesses, Blue Tree HR Solutions can offer you a really easy answer to these and other Employee Admin problems. We provide companies with a cloud-based, online system, suitable for companies with 2-200 employees.

Staff can make holiday requests online to be authorised by their line manager. A team calendar shows who has already booked any holiday, employees and employers can easily keep track of holidays used and available. The system does all the calculations for you, as well as exporting to Excel and your Outlook Calendar.

This low-cost HR software system is vital for small businesses to be able to reduce the time spent on all HR admin and gives you time to focus on achieving your business goals. Leaving you enough time to perhaps take a holiday yourself?

We’re an accredited Partner of breatheHR and are able to provide a full range of services to support your implementation. Don’t worry though, it’s quick to set up, simple to use and loved by MDs, HR Managers and employees alike! For more information and a demonstration of how breatheHR will help you, contact our team.

Alternatively, for expert HR advice for small businesses, including ad hoc HR support and retained HR support, you can contact us here and one of our Blue Tree freelance HR consultants will be happy to help.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]