Blog

Are you ready to raise the bar on HR……………………………….

· by Emma Browning
Ready to raise the bar on HR?  Growing a business without HR expertise is challenging at best, and a constant uphill struggle at worst. If you’ve ever had to tackle a people issue on your own, you’ll know just how stressful it can be. Between trying to manage your legal obligations, and meeting your operational requirements, firefighting can become part of your everyday routine if you’re not careful. The last few months have shown us, how valuable it can be to have your HR Expert on speed dial. There is…

The positive impact volunteering or charity events will have on your team

· by Emma Browning
If I told you that approximately 70% of FTSE 100 companies have a volunteering programme, would you be surprised? I know I was! So, there must be a compelling reason why our biggest and most successful corporates do this. After all, they have budgets and performance targets like the rest of us.  How do they justify this ‘charitable’ financial commitment to their returns-hungry shareholders?  Because they know that engaged employees make happier and more productive employees, that’s why!  Making sure you have highly engaged employees at the moment, is absolutely…

Managing Survivor Syndrome in your business

· by Emma Browning
What is survivor syndrome? We’ve all felt the impact of redundancies in one form or another over our careers, but what has been happening during the recent Coronavirus outbreak, is going to leave the people who may remain in your business in a difficult situation. When a company decides it needs to cut costs, redundancies will often be top of the list of considerations. In our experience, its often not the fact that you are making the redundancies that’s the problem – your employees are pretty clued up and will…

Returning to the Workplace – Guide

· by Emma Browning
This guide will help you plan your organisation’s next steps as lockdown measures ease or following a period of furlough The CIPD is urging businesses to ensure they can meet three key tests before bringing their people back to the workplace and Meraki HR would encourage its clients to follow these 3 same principles; Is it essential? If people can continue to work from home employers should at least consider continuing to do that for the foreseeable future. If they cannot work from home, is their work deemed essential to…

Returning to the Workplace – FAQ’s

· by Emma Browning
Q: From a health, safety and well-being perspective, what are the employer’s obligations about managing a return to work? From 1 August Government guidance outlines that: Office workers may cautiously return to work from 1 August if it is safe to do so. The Government’s previous advice that workers should continue to work from home wherever possible and avoid public transport ends from 1 August. Any return to work by office staff is at the employers’ discretion. The onus is therefore on employers (not the Government) to decide how staff…

Flexible Working During the Pandemic and beyond…………………………….

· by Emma Browning
In recent months, the coronavirus pandemic has led to a significant amount of the workforce working from home. Many employees have also found themselves working more flexibly in terms of the hours or days that they work, often as a result of balancing work and other responsibilities such as home schooling or childcare. Before the pandemic, only around 5% of the workforce worked mainly from home. The number of people working from home has increased steadily over the last five years, but the current situation has escalated remote working at…
· by Emma Browning
Restructuring the Workplace post COVID-19 – FAQ’s for Employers The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS) may have been extended to 31 October 2020, but employers are thinking now about what their workforce might look like following the end of subsidised furlough and a return to more normal working patterns. Following advice from a number of our legal sources; Draper Lang, Crosslands and Lewis Silkin, we’ve tried to summarise answers to key questions that we are being asked about regarding restructuring the workforce. These cover options for extending furlough, notice and…

Thrive with Meraki HR

· by Emma Browning
At Meraki HR, we have always been here to help and support clients with their immediate people problems. Being able to deal with these issues quickly and with the minimum of fuss and impact to your business, allowing you to get on with what you do best – running your business!  However, most of our work with clients has been around helping them create great places to work; where their people are happy, motivated, engaged and highly productive. We appreciate that there are a lot of immediate issues and problems…

How volunteering or completing charity events can have a positive impact on your team and their well being

· by Emma Browning
If I told you that approximately 70% of FTSE 100 companies have a volunteering programme, would you be surprised? I know I was! So, there must be a compelling reason why our biggest and most successful corporates do this. After all, they have budgets and performance targets like the rest of us.  How do they justify this ‘charitable’ financial commitment to their returns-hungry shareholders?  Because they know that engaged employees make happier and more productive employees, that’s why!  Making sure you have highly engaged employees at the moment, is absolutely…

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – June Update

· by Emma Browning
It’s hard to keep up with everything that’s being introduced in relation to the COVID19 Pandemic, so here’s our round up of the latest news and info. Summary of the changes to the JRS announced on Friday 29th May 2020 The Furlough Scheme will be closed to new entrants, and employees must have been on Furlough for 3 weeks prior to 30 June 2020 in order to qualify for the new scheme. This means employees will need to have been placed on Furlough by 10 June 2020 to qualify for…