Every business that employs anyone should have such procedures. Failure to do so can lead to the incorrect handling of situations which in turn can be damaging both in terms of management time and in possible financial awards from Employment Tribunal. It also makes sense that both employer and employee know where they stand when it comes to disagreements or the like. It is more likely that such a situation will be resolved without damage if there is a clear set of rules to deal with the problem in a formal way.
The smaller the business the simpler these procedures can be but at heart they must all provide a clear, fair way of resolving disputes and handling disciplinary cases. With large companies one can be sure that lengthy and detailed procedures exist with input from a dedicated HR department. However, it is the small and medium size businesses that often fall short on these procedures. Many cannot justify an HR manager, let alone a whole department, and survive on one of the directors or a senior manager doing the best they can when problems arise.
Although full advice can be found on the ACAS website www.acas.org.uk regarding the design of these sorts of procedures no one design fits all and it is almost as dangerous to adopt a template from another source as not to have a procedure at all. Care must be taken to tailor procedures to your own business. Each procedure needs to be considered in the light of the actual way the business works in practice on a day to day basis; the role of key personnel in dealing with low level problems needs to be considered so that if resolution does not occur there are enough staff or directors higher up the organisation who have not been involved before to grapple with those problems; flexibility needs to be built into what should not be too prescriptive a process.
I am able to provide guidance by analysing how your business operates and then how these procedures can designing the shaped and content of the procedure to suit you and not the other way about. As the business evolves procedures need to be reviewed from time to time to ensure that they still fulfil their intended function and are up to date with current law and practice in the field.
