HR Heartbeat: the true costs of recruitment, procedural fairness, and feeling the benefit…

Welcome to HR Heartbeat, where we take a look at the week’s most pressing HR and employment law stories. With over 18 years’ experience in employee relations, I give my opinion on current trends impacting your business, as well as my own personal commentary on all things HR and legal.

Employers lose two days to admin for every new hire

New research shows that every new hire costs UK employers two days in admin tasks. That’s an estimated £17,000 in lost productivity per recruiter per year!

For every manual HR process you undertake, there’s time to be saved by automating it. It’s always worth reviewing the recruitment process, looking at ways to create job descriptions, store candidate details and speed up stakeholder communication and decision making.

Speeding up the recruitment process is important for candidates and internal stakeholders alike. You might even find an AI-assisted recruitment model that will make you the employer of choice, and save yourself time and money.

Procedural failings led to unfair dismissal for Barclays employee

An Barclays employee won an unfair dismissal case due to failings in the formal investigation. These included unnecessary and unfair delays, which made the investigation fall outside the range of reasonable procedures.

When things go wrong, a clear, fair and consistent disciplinary procedure will protect your business and ensure employees are treated fairly. Keep your managers up-to-date with behaviour and performance management training and make sure your paperwork and procedures and compliant and clear to follow.

40% of employers treat employee benefits as an afterthought

A recent survey revealed that 2 in 5 employers leave it to their employees find and use their benefits on their own. In the flurry of onboarding, induction and e-learning, key messages can be lost. But information about health and wellbeing is just as important as health and safety.

If you offer a pension, an Employee Assistance Plan, or a perks platform, you can keep the message coming in using different media and at different times. Whether you offer financial benefits or lifestyle benefits, your employees can only feel the benefit if they know about it. It’ll raise morale, retention, and job satisfaction.

And that’s a wrap from me. Tune in next time for my take on the latest headlines and employment law stories, helping keep your business ahead!