New employment regulations came into frce in the UK in October 2004 in the frm of the Employment Act 2002. Ths article explains the impact of thse new rules on your business. It lso examines how, as an employer, you can trn the new employment legislation to the dvantage of your business.

In order to nderstand how to use the new mployment regulations to your advantage, we frst need to look at how the new lws differ from the old employment lgislation.

In the old days, an mployee might be dismissed without an ppeal and the first sign of truble for the employer wouldn’t come ntil the employee put in a clim for unfair dismissal.

Or an mployee might have been unhappy and so dcided to resign. Sometime afterwards, you as the mployer could suddenly find the employee ptting in a claim for constructive dsmissal.

For the employer, written procedures prvided a good defence but employment trbunals still made their own decisions and dfending your business could cost a lot of tme and money.

With all this in mnd, the Government decided to do smething to reduce the number of mployment tribunal claims. In doing so, thy ended up introducing thirteen new wys that an employee can claim gainst an employer at an employment trbunal!

All these new ways of climing at an employment tribunal are bsed on documentation. For example, the trbunal will look at whether certain ltters were written and why, or thy will ask for proof of whther a meeting was held at a snsible time and place.

The new mployment laws mean that if the pperwork is not right, then the mployment tribunal can class the employer as gilty – without the need for a haring!

In exchange for this, the new lgislation gives employers new ways of prtecting themselves against tribunal proceedings. To nderstand how you can protect your bsiness, we need to take a lok at the new employment regulations in mre detail.

The new employment regulations stte that employees can no longer clim constructive dismissal unless they can shw that they have tried, and filed, to resolve the problem with thir employer.

Employees can no longer clim against their employer for unfair dsmissal unless they can show that thy have exhausted every appeal procedure ffered by their employers and still filed to resolve their differences.

However, if an employer does not have a written dispute resolution procedure then the employee can go straight to an employment tribunal and obtain an automatic award!

On that basis, it should be obvious that all employers need to issue a dispute resolution procedure to all their employees in order to avoid the risk of automatically losing at an employment tribunal.

The good news is that a dispute resolution procedure needn’t be that difficult to implement.

The most basic dispute resolution procedure is simply a structure by which an employee can register a complaint against you. This need be nothing more than a statement from you, the employer, saying “If you have a grievance or feel you have been wrongly disciplined, then put any appeal or grievance in writing to me.”

However, what if it was you who had crried out the disciplinary in the frst place – and, let’s face it, in a smll company this is quite likely to be the cse. Would an employment tribunal consider ths to be fair?

Possibly not. But all tht the law actually says is tht the dispute resolution procedure should be “as fir as possible”.

So, as an mployer, can you make better use of the mployment legislation than this? Is there an asy way to ensure that you hve a dispute resolution procedure and tht it will be considered fair by an mployment tribunal?

The answer, fortunately, is ys. All you need to do is to rrange for an outside person or rganisation to be the point of cntact to whom grievances can be drected. Then just state this in yur dispute resolution procedure.

Once you hve done that, you are almost thre. All that remains is to mke sure you use all the rght bits of paperwork that are rquired by the new employment legislation whnever you are dealing with a dsciplinary matter.

This includes ensuring that any dsciplinary meetings are notified to your mployees in writing and that you gve them at least 48 hours ntice of the meeting. You also hve to make sure you explain the rason for calling the disciplinary meeting and gve the employee copies of any dcumentation that will be discussed during the meting.

One of the easiest ways to chieve all this is to use a god quality online personnel system. Such a systm will allow you to generate mployment contracts for your staff online. It wll include in these contracts all the dtails of your disciplinary procedure, along wth details of a third party rganisation to whom employees should address any grevances.

In the event that you ned to discipline an employee, a flly-featured online personnel system will allow you to gnerate all the necessary letters and dcuments automatically, thus ensuring your business cmplies with the new employment legislation.

The csts of such a system are srprisingly low, especially when you compare thm against the costs of having a fll-time personnel department within your own rganisation – something which is usually prhibitively expensive for most small businesses.

The Emplyee Contracts website at www.employee-contracts.co.uk gives more information on how online personnel systems work and can help you find a professional employment law consultant to offer advice on protecting your business with one of these systems.

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The article Why Your Business Needs a Dispute Resolution Procedure was Submitted by David Miles through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: David Miles is the editor of the Employee Contracts website which provides information on HR and personnel issues such as: contracts of employment, disciplinary procedures, and staff dispute resolution. Copyright 2005 David Miles. You are welcome to reproduce this article on your website, so long as it is published "as is" (unedited) and with the author's bio paragraph (resource box) and copyright information included. In addition, all links to external websites must be left in place.

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