The first full year since tribunal fees were abolished has seen a huge uplift in cases. There were 10,996 claims in the 2018 period April to June, this was compared to 4,241 during the same period in 2017.
Without the need to pay a fee to have a case heard it would seem that employees are more likely to put a claim in. The impact of this on your business could be an administrative burden if you have to defend a claim, even if the claim doesn’t succeed there will still be the impact of preparing and fighting the claim.
The best way to mitigate the risk of your employees going down this road is for you to ensure that you have strong employment policies in place and ensure that line managers have training on key areas of employment law.
Whilst it is great to have policies and training in place it is also important to ensure that employees have a way to air any issues they may have. Creating a culture where employees feel that they are being listened to and that any issues are being dealt with promptly will go a long way to ensuring they don’t feel the need to go down the tribunal route.
This can be as simple as the leaders within the business having an ‘open door’ policy where employees know that they will be listened to. If you do have HR in your business, then your HR people being accessible is great too! Having someone that your people can talk to can help them air their issues and may stop minor issues escalating.
We can help with a HR check of your policies and practices and offer advice on what could be improved.
If things have gone to the ‘formal step’ and you are wanting someone to provide an outsider’s view on the situation we can step in and run any disciplinaries or grievances to get the right outcome for you.