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Establishing a successful recruitment process and clear written employment contracts for new employees can have a major impact on your business.

Every business needs to be aware of its obligations under minimum wage and equal pay laws, as well as recent pensions auto-enrolment changes.

You must comply with legal restrictions on employees' working hours and time off, or risk claims, enforcement action and even prosecution.

The right employment policies are an essential part of effective staff management. Make sure any policy is clear and well communicated to employees.

While sick employees need to be treated fairly, you need to ensure that 'sickness' is not being used as cover for unauthorised absence.

Most pregnant employees are entitled to maternity leave and maternity pay, while new fathers are entitled to paternity leave and paternity pay.

As well as undermining morale, illegal discrimination can lead to workplace grievances. Employee discrimination is covered by the Equality Act 2010.

Home, remote and lone workers are becoming increasingly commonplace. Key issues include communication and how to manage and motivate people remotely.

The right approach to consulting with and providing information to your employees can improve employee motivation and performance.

Disciplinary and grievance issues can be a major burden to employers. Putting in place and following the right procedures is essential.

Following the right dismissal and redundancy procedures helps protect your business and minimise the risk of a legal dispute at tribunal.

Employment tribunal claims are a worrying prospect for any employer. A tribunal case is a no-win situation – even if the claim is unjustified.

Free digital skills hub for small firms goes live

1 September 2020

Make It Click is a new initiative aimed at supporting small businesses and helping them to boost their IT skills.

The new Make It Click small business hub is being delivered by social change charity Good Things Foundation. Supported by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the UK Government, the hub offers small firms an easy and convenient way to improve their digital skills.

A poll of over 500 UK small firms and sole traders by Make It Click has found that 47% have suffered a significant loss of earnings as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To help keep their businesses competitive, 66% of business owners agree they will need to continually update their online/IT skills, yet almost a third (32%) say they would not know where to go to do this.

Make It Click offers a range of free online learning resources to help business owners and their employees increase their digital know-how and confidence. Skills range from beginner courses on word processing to social media marketing and online accounting - the top skills that small business owners said would help to boost their business during the pandemic.

Helen Milner, chief executive of Good Things Foundation, said: "We know that digital skills deliver growth and jobs, and for many small businesses a lack of digital skills is holding them back. Our new resources are vital to help small businesses recover and build skills and resilience … I hope our new hub can help small businesses feel more confident about their future."

The new resources also form part of the Skills Toolkit published by the Government and key industry partners.

Mike Cherry, FSB national chairman, said: "Delivering support to help small businesses increase their digital skills is crucial. The pandemic is making this even more of a priority; FSB research found that in early lockdown [that] around 40% of small businesses adopted or increased their use of digital technologies.

"Alongside supporting this new skills hub, we are asking government to widen the definition of R&D and introduce digital vouchers for small businesses to make it easier for them to adopt digital technologies."

Mike Adams, ceo of Purple, a small business changing the disability conversation to support businesses and disabled people, said: "Since the pandemic, digital skills have gone from being 'nice to have' to essential and we wouldn't have survived if we hadn't quickly adapted. Over the next 12 months our focus is to develop a digital skills training programme to ensure each of our employees deepens their IT knowledge. Make It Click will form an essential component of this as its resources are extensive and its flexible learning approach makes it easy to implement."

Written by Rachel Miller.

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