Policies and Procedures

By law you are required to provide your employees with written confirmation of your disciplinary rules and to whom they should address any grievances.

Even where the law does not require you to have written rules, having detailed and clear policies and procedures ensures that employees know what is expected of them and what their rights are. It avoids someone “getting off the hook” because the rules are unclear when you want to discipline them. Having documented procedures also means that managers will know how to handle particular situations (e.g. disciplinary hearings) and this should hopefully avoid any pitfalls, and in particular any Claims.

Having an Equal Opportunities Policy (that you train people on and apply) can help you defend a discrimination claim by showing that you took all reasonable steps to prevent the discrimination.

Policies and Procedures can include:-

• Disciplinary Procedure
• Grievance Procedure
• IT/Email/Mobile Phone Policies
• Health and Safety Policy
• Whistleblowing/Bullying and Harassment Policy
• Equal Opportunities Policy
• Sickness Policy

Rees Page can health check your existing policies and procedures or write new ones for you that will be tailored to the needs of your individual business.