You take your car for an MOT, you take yourself to the doctor for a check up, you even get an accountant to look at your books, but when was the last time you gave your employee practices an audit?
Do you know if you are legally compliant?
Are you sure you are getting the best value for money from your employees?
Are your employees motivated and engaged with your business?
Would your employees recommend you as a good employer to work for?
Do you know the risks your business is exposed to as a result of its current employment practices?
For many SMEs across London and Hertfordshire, the answer is “no”, or sometimes a little more naively “I don’t care, we are too smalll, it doesn’t affect us”.
At DOHR we carry out a full HR audit. We interview the business owners, we use questionnaires with staff, we look at documents, we review data and we ask lots of questions.
What business owners end up with is a thorough understanding of the risks their business is exposed to as a result of employing people. Sounds scary, we know, but the best way to protect a business from anything is to understand the risk, put in place actions to mitigate the risk and continue to monitor the situation on a regular basis.
Employment tribunals for discrimination, bullying and failure to follow procedures can cost thousands to defend and tens of thousands (if not more) in damages. For an SME these costs can be the difference between having a business and shutting it down. Even with one employee, it is important to get HR advice, understand what you should be doing and then decide how to do it in a way which works for your business.
