Small Business Human Resources

Since the days of the Youth Training Scheme, the Government has always tried to publicly ‘push’ the idea of Apprentices and what they can do for businesses both large and small. However the reality of Apprenticeships is less a mixed bag of results, more a bag of pitiful re-engineering that is not fit for purpose.

Smaller businesses looking to reduce their workforces should urgently prepare for the costs of redundancies, following changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme made late last year.
That’s the warning from human resources experts The HR Dept, which provides human resources advice and support for more than 6,500 small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) across the UK and Ireland.

Today, Friday 15th February, the Supreme Court gave its long awaited input into a long running legal fight from Uber – a case known as Uber v Aslam & Others. It has huge implications for small business owners and freelancers.

Large companies are generally amazing at social monitoring. Have you ever tagged a company in a post on social media, either positive or negative, and received a response within minutes? Well, that’s due to their stellar social monitoring….

The initial shock of lockdown HAS receded. We’re not seeing social media posts about wildlife wandering into city centres, schools have reopened, and the roads are fairly busy again. At the same time, we’re wearing masks, social distancing and maintaining our bubbles.

So, what does this underlying uncertainty mean for small businesses and their teams?

If we didn’t already know, then today’s BBC article has confirmed it – we’re in a recession. What does that usually mean? We look to save money. What’s typically the biggest cost for an employer? Their staff, and the costs associated with employing them. Salaries and on-costs are the obvious ones, but then there’s training and benefits – and HR support.