If you’re considering making staff redundant, this is a broad overview of what you’ll need to know. Have a chat with your business consultant beforehand as each organisation is different and these broad outlines can obviously be tailored to what you require.

1. Do you have a genuine redundancy situation?

The only three valid reasons for making employees redundant are:
• The closure of the business for which they were employed
• The closure of the place of business where they were employed to work
• A reduced requirement for employees to carry out work of a particular kind

2. Is this a “collective redundancy”?

If you are making more than 20 people redundant within 90 days there are extra notification and consultation requirements.

3. How can you dismiss the employees fairly?

The actual process is quite complex, but broadly you must:
• Consult with your employees first
• Identify the correct pool for selection
• Apply objective selection criteria
• Offer suitable alternative employment where appropriate
• At all times follow a “reasonable” dismissal process
In certain circumstances, selection of an employee for redundancy is automatically unfair, even though the overall redundancy is otherwise genuine.

4. What to pay them?

Employees with over two years’ continuous service are entitled to statutory redundancy. Each employee’s contract may expressly entitle them to further payments and yet further payment may be implied into their contract by management actions or industry norms.

5. What alternatives are there?

There are several potentially easier/cheaper alternatives you may wish to consider:
• Dismissing any employees you can for conduct or capability first
• Restricting new recruitment and overtime
• Not renewing contractor and agency worker contracts
• Layoffs and short-time working
• Voluntary redundancy
• Early retirement

Reading this may make a genuine need to dismiss staff seem like an impassable jungle of rules and regulations. It’s perfectly possible to get it right though – take professional advice, ask for a detailed checklist to follow and ask again if you are unsure at any stage.

In the current economic climate, every business is looking for ways to increase efficiency. Staff costs are an obvious and sizeable target. However, the complexity of employment law makes dismissing staff an expensive minefield for the unwary employer. This article gives an overview of the rules on dismissal and redundancy. However, always seek professional advice or advice from your business consultant before committing yourself.

The key principles

There are three key principles in the law governing dismissals:
• There must be a fair reason for the dismissal
• You must act reasonably in dismissing for that reason
• You must follow a fair procedure

It is also sensible to:

• Give the correct notice of dismissal to avoid wrongful dismissal claims
• Avoid breaching the terms of their employment contract as this may remove protection you receive, such as clauses preventing them approaching your customers or working for local competitors.

Fair reason

Dismissal of an employee is only fair under UK law for one of six reasons:
• Their conduct
• Their capability or qualifications
• Their job becoming redundant – more on this below
• They have reached normal retirement age
• Continuing to employ them would be illegal
• For “some other substantial reason” (on a case by case basis, but this is rare)

Dismissals for any other reason are automatically unfair, however employees can usually only sue for unfair dismissal after one year of employment. The exceptions to this include dismissal for reasons related to pregnancy, parental leave, flexible working or whistleblowing.

Acting reasonably

You will need to demonstrate that you acted reasonably in dismissing the employee for the reason you stated. For example, in the case of capability you must give them the chance to improve.

Following a fair procedure

What is fair will depend on the reason for dismissal, but as a general rule:
• Give the employee adequate information about the reasons for their potential dismissal
• Allow them the chance to give their side of the story

For cases of misconduct or poor performance, the procedure you should follow for dismissals commencing after 5 April 2009 is laid out in the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures. Failure to follow this is likely to make the dismissal unfair and may increase any tribunal award by up to 25%.

An example of a transient threat is malicious advertising (known as malverts). Websites which generate revenue though embedding syndicated advertising systems can unwittingly deliver malware to users’ machines. Online criminals simply create and submit a malvert to an advertising network, which is then pushed out to hundreds of sites. Surfers who click on the advert and whose PC is not properly protected, will be infected.

One threat can easily lead to another. Once a computer is compromised, it can appear to function normally, but the user may be unwittingly redirected to malicious replicas of legitimate sites. Or malware may be lurking on the machine, activated only when a user visits a site with information that’s worth stealing – online banking, investment, eBay, or PayPal, for example. The malware then records keystrokes (which could include account numbers and passwords) and sends them to its controller.

For the criminal, finding a vulnerable site to exploit can be as simple as doing a Google search (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_hacking). Once a target has been identified, there are many avenues to taking control of a website for malicious purposes – in fact, the Google search itself can help to identify the most effective way to attack a site. The simplest consequence might be that the criminal steals a database containing customer or employee information like addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, mothers’ maiden names, email addresses, and passwords. The more data on a PC or web server, the more value it has to a criminal, who can then use this information to clone an identity.

A more sophisticated attack could involve taking control of the entire site, rather than just stealing information. Once this kind of attack has occurred, the site can be set to automatically attempt to deliver malware to a visitor’s machine without that visitor even clicking a button on the site.

These kinds of attacks are not rare. They occur every single day as criminals browse through the millions of sites that haven’t been updated with the latest security patches to protect against the latest exploits. If you run an e-commerce website, you have a duty to your own reputation and to your customers to keep it updated and secure. If you run a business with PCs which can access the Internet, you have the same duty of care to your customers – who may depend on your IT security for their security – and to the staff who use your IT network.

So what do top business consultants tell us? It’s really quite simple. The best way to be secure is to have as many levels of security as you can manage. Keep all your systems – servers and end-user machines – up to date on patches and protected with professional-grade security software.

Pre-meeting communication

Business consultants recommend that before any meeting the following is clearly communicated to everyone attending, to ensure a degree of alignment when people arrive at the meeting.

PURPOSE of the meeting, to explain the context and scope for the meeting.

PRE-WORK – anything you want people to think about or prepare to bring into the meeting (be realistic about what people will do as pre-work though).

OUTCOMES – the specific things you are aiming to achieve

AGENDA – at least an overview, showing the timing of breaks

ROLES – it is often useful to clarify why they have been invited and the specific role they will take in the meeting. When people understand this they are much more likely to commit to being at the meeting.

LOGISTICS – where, when, dress code etc.

Setting up productive meetings

Begin the meeting by restating the outcomes, agenda, roles and ground rules; this is the best way to get everyone on the same page or to check if there is a misalignment of expectations. Present this information on a chart or poster (not a PowerPoint slide) and keep it up during the meeting to provide a reference point to come back to if the meeting starts to go off track.

Technological considerations

One thing to consider, which we have not touched upon over this two part article - can the meeting being held over a video conferencing system? Imagine the cost and time savings that can be achieved by not having to travel to the venue. We will go into this in more detail in the future.

Summary

None of the advice above is rocket science, but it is amazing how few meetings have sufficient preparation, good pre-communication and an effective set up. These techniques can be applied to any kind of meeting, whether it is a board meeting or a one to one conversation and will produce improved results.

If recession wasn’t bad enough, now so much trading and business is done through the internet we need to be aware of the ever changing threat which comes from online criminals. Business consultants advise us to be extremely careful, especially when doing business online.

The world of internet security has completely changed from a decade ago.
The stereotype of the hacker kid in his parents’ basement no longer applies. Modern-day creators of malicious software (known as malware) sell their wares through on-line exchanges to organised professional criminals, who then use that malware to make millions from unsuspecting internet users.

We can all remember the headline-grabbing epidemics of online viruses sweeping the globe. But these days, malware is made differently. In the past viruses were crafted for fame within the hacker community. Today malware is about making money quickly and quietly. Modern malware often hijacks your PC in ways you won’t immediately notice. It is not there to proclaim, “I got you!” but rather to quietly pickpocket you or your business as often and as much as possible.

At the enterprise level, most businesses have the budget to invest heavily in information security and data protection, often with whole departments in place to ensure the secure, smooth running of IT services. It is the smaller businesses which tend to be under-protected and, specifically, it is those small businesses which tend to rely more heavily on e-commerce sites for their revenue.

It is not just the criminal who has changed. The nature of the threat has also evolved. Increasingly online threats are becoming transient which means that the threat appears briefly on an otherwise legitimate website, does its dirty work and then moves on.

Whenever someone surfs the Internet, the communications tunnel between their PC and the Internet is viewed as a trusted channel by the firewall, exposing the business to these new web-borne threats. Business users visiting websites poisoned by cybercriminals don’t even have to click on anything to become infected. Combine this with the transience of these threats, which frequently infect sites for very short periods of time and you are beginning to build a picture of the potential danger that can hide behind even the most legitimate, trusted sites – perhaps even your own.

Business consultants and business trainers will tell us that the average business manager wastes three weeks a year in meetings that are a complete waste of time and that doesn’t even include the ones that are just ineffective and unproductive.

If you want to stop wasting your time in ineffective meetings, this article will give you some practical tips for making your meetings much more valuable. These tips will work for every type of meeting.

Put time into preparation

It is common bad practice to schedule a meeting without making time to prepare. This does not make good sense, when you think that a half day meeting for 10 people equates to five days worth of work in all. If we had to suggest one thing that would massively increase the productivity of most meetings, it would be to make enough time to prepare.

Prepare what? Purpose, outcomes and outputs

Sight is often lost about why the meeting is needed and what it should deliver, so take a moment to consider the following:

PURPOSE: Why have this meeting? How does it fit in with the overall work of this group? What do you want to happen that wouldn’t happen without this meeting?
If the latter question was asked more often it is possible that most meetings would get cancelled.

OUTCOMES: What do you want to have achieved by the end of the session?
It is useful to consider the outcomes for both the whole meeting and the separate agenda items. All too often meetings have agendas with no defined outcomes. For example an agenda item might say, ‘agree budgets for 2008/09’, without any real clarity about what needs to come out of that session, or the level of detail required, let alone how the decisions will get made.

OUTPUTS: What documentation is required after the meeting? Who will it go to? How will it be used? So often time is wasted writing lengthy minutes from meetings, which never get read by anyone except the poor unfortunate who got landed with the task of writing them.

When purpose, outcomes and outputs are clear and aligned, it is the first step to a successful meeting.

During these difficult times one option to cut down staffing costs would be to set up a work placement program. Placements vary in length from one day per week, to over summer and Easter holidays or for 6-12 months as industrial placements or a vocational element of a course. Make sure you plan it well. A top business consultancy gives the following guidelines:

Before: planning for the placement

Plan ahead to ensure there is a meaningful but achievable project that is appropriate to the skills level of the placement, normally a task requiring specialist knowledge or skills which are not currently present within an organisation. Some options could include marketing, research, design and implementation of databases, creation
of a website, the development of IT systems and reviewing work processes and efficiency.

Draw up a plan with colleagues, draft a job description or project outline, have an idea of the competencies required for the position and be clear about the job you want them to do.

Interview and treat work-placement students just as you would any other employee and include them in all activities to give a realistic view of working for your company, helping them integrate and feel valued. The placement can be considered as a ‘taster’ session to observe the student as a potential hire with no commitment.

During: how to get the most from the placement

Provide an induction ensuring the student is familiar with company objectives, health and safety and key staff. The goals and objective you set must be realistic. Break them down into manageable steps if they are complex. Make sure that they have their own work space and access to everything they need to complete their tasks.

Assign a mentor who can provide guidance and answer any questions, also organise progress reviews and regular assessment. Set up opportunities for regular feedback from the student too, so that you can iron out any problems, identify training needs and make sure that the work you have set progresses.

After: assessing the success of the placement

At the end of the placement provide a two-way review of the student’s performance. This will ensure that the student gets the most out of the experience and will allow you to assess the impact of their work on your business and evaluate the programme for the future.

If you think you have found the right person for your business, now is the time to discuss future work opportunities.

The best work placements should help students to develop innovation and entrepreneurial skills. This in turn will facilitate the development of new ideas, desired and needed by businesses and the wider economy. You don’t need a business consultant to tell you that ultimately it can help you be more profitable, reduce costs and make better use of time. Employ a student and see your business benefit as a result. You can profit from their skills.

Recession has become an unfortunate but popular topic of conversation. Either we’re in a recession or one is tapping on our shoulders. What strategy should we adopt in such tough economic conditions? Business consultants and business coaches can make a number of recommendations to help you through these times.

Here are three ways you can make things work more effectively.

First, search engine optimisation (SEO). This is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines through “natural” search results for targeted keywords (not the paid-for results such as Google AdWords).

It goes without saying that a website is a necessity. Although many businesses simply pay for a listing in local online directories, there is a clear and compelling argument to have a website that is properly search engine optimised and ‘findable’ for the key services you are offering and specifically directed towards your target geographic location. Most importantly, this approach works out far more cost-effective in the long run than other, more traditional forms of advertising.

Searchers are more likely to visit a site if it ranks highly in their search results. SEO can also target image searches, local searches, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Second, blogs. Blogs are a great way to start - or to expand, if you already have a website. Websites with regularly updated commentary and content such as blogs are search engine friendly and are also a great way to create engaging content in an ongoing, cost-effective way. A company, for example, can use an optimised blog to promote press releases and to create content that ‘hooks’ visitors online and builds up relevance and credibility. This approach not only gets the company’s name out, but also creates more visibility in search engines.

Blogs are helpful for yet another reason: they automatically include an RSS feed, which creates another communication channel. An RSS feed makes it possible to subscribe to the blog content with browsers or an RSS reader, and makes it visible to blog and RSS search engines like Google Blog Search.

Third, web analytics, the measurement and analysis of user activity on a website. Web analytics mean that the effect of search engine optimisation is highly measurable. It is a valuable tool, even for sites that do not sell online, but have brand awareness as their key goal.

It provides insight into where traffic comes from, how they got there as well as the conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who take a desired action; i.e. make a purchase or contact you).

Proactive use of web analytics can identify weak points in the site. Think of all the little things that might be wrong with your web site and how, if they were rectified, they could improve the conversion rate. Shoppers might drop out of the check-out process because you don’t share delivery information until they have given up their credit card information. The page that draws the highest search traffic might have a huge abandon rate because your content isn’t targeted properly, or fails to encourage users to dive deeper into your website.

Continuing straight on from part one of this article, here are the final three points that business coaches have identified to help you through troubled times.

4) Set yourself apart

Put bluntly, the only way you will succeed in taking market share from your competitors is by offering a product or service which is better and different. Simply being as good as the market is not good enough. You wouldn’t switch your domestic electricity supplier if all you were offered was the same price and the same level of customer service as you already had – just think of the hassle and time it would take, for no real benefit.

To weather the storm and to drive long term and sustainable growth, quite simply your business has to differentiate itself from others.

5) The impact of change on existing resources

Once you have clarified your business focus, you need to look internally at the impact of the growth strategy. What will your business need to look like in order to realise the plans you have in place and what additional people, processes and resources will need to be made available?

Fundamental questions need to be asked about your business processes. Operational thinking might say: ‘we need to invest in a new plant’, but strategic thinking might say ‘we need to outsource the whole manufacturing process or licence production if we are to achieve the right volumes and reduce costs’. In the retail sector, you might need to examine whether it makes sense to revamp your existing stores, to expand your chain, or if it would be more profitable to invest in an online model.

6) Plan….. then make it happen

It’s a fact that over 80% of strategies are created and never implemented. They sit on a shelf gathering dust and are often never seen again. Don’t let that happen to your growth plans. Monitor progress and performance rigorously, communicate widely to the business and explain ‘what it means to me’. Embed the strategy in the business and lead the organisation through an exciting transformation.

Times are tough, but there are clear and methodical steps that can lead you to be a winner, even in uncertain markets. Take the challenge and guide your business to longer-term success, the view from the top is breath-taking.

We all know that markets are tough at the moment. We are facing difficult times and the full impact of the downturn is yet to be felt. However, even in challenging times there are winners - businesses who are committed to driving growth despite markets that are being ‘rocked’ by current conditions. Business coaches have identified six key steps to get you on the right track.

1) Focus beyond the year-end

The role of the board is to think strategically and to look to the longer-term future and success of the business. The board should be thinking 80% strategically and 20% operationally and not the other way round, which is often the case. At the moment we are seeing the split higher than at any point over the last 15 years – almost 95% of discussions in UK boardrooms are around short-term tactical issues, rather than long-term strategies.

There is often a real tendency to get caught up in the annual budget cycle and we can often become obsessed with meeting short-term targets. However, this approach can serve to limit growth. By focusing purely on meeting short-term internal expectations, you could be missing significantly greater market opportunities.

2) Limit short term cutbacks - you can’t shrink your way to growth

When we encounter tougher economic times, or when businesses are looking at how to improve profitability, there is an instinct to look for immediate cost savings and ways of reducing overheads, in order to improve the bottom line.

Driving improved efficiency in the business in this way is often very relevant and can add significantly to profits. However, beware, you cannot shrink your way to long-term growth. Cutting back too far and too hard will significantly limit your longer-term opportunities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, successful businesses often invest more heavily in the tough times to lay strong foundations for future growth. Of course it is not spend, spend, spend, but well-focused and targeted investments that really count.

3) Focus for growth

Fundamentally, businesses that succeed are highly focused. They are very clear about which market opportunities are right for them and they re-engineer their business in order to take advantage of these markets and customers. This may be their core business, but there can also be adjacent markets which offer significant development potential. Whichever the opportunity, having the board consistently clear about where the business will grow is key.

Being as clear about the markets we will not develop is equally important. Focus your team’s time, effort and energy in the markets that will offer your business the best chances for growth. This could mean being brave….some parts of your portfolio might not cut it any more and you may need to exit some business streams.