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May Day
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Today is Mayday, said to be a time of love and romance, when people celebrate the coming of summer with lots of different customs that are expressions of joy and hope after a long winter (and this year in particular it has certainly been a long winter!).
Traditional May Day celebrations have been carried out in England for over 2000 years and include the following
Morris dancing
Crowning a May Queen
Dancing around a Maypole
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ley hill solutions Discussion Forums
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From our work with high performing assessment teams on UK and European awards programmes, we know the power of addressing an issue with more than one mind.
You can experience this power yourself by joining the ley hill solutions discussion forums, where you can ask questions, join discussions or simply just view the comments as they appear, on a number of quality and performance related issues, tools & techniques and standards.
to enter the forums and choose a topic.
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Online Excellence Calculator
Would you like to see how your organisation might perform if assessed by the EFQM Excellence Model? There are many types of self-assessment available to organisations wishing to benefit from this widely used excellence framework.
Experience just one of them by follo wing this link and completing a ten minute, matrix-based assessment of the level of excellence of your organisation. | | |
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_________________________________
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Greetings!
Do you worry that employment law is a minefield and that your organisation, though trying its best to be fair and caring towards all its employees, is still at risk from an unexploded "unfair dismissal" or "equal opportunities" bomb or the like? Have a look below at "Essential HR and other policies" and our article on Standards, the second in our series of articles on our Toolkit. Both these give ways of being more under control and at less risk.
Today, the first of May, is May Day and as well as thinking about the traditional celebrations and customs associated with this day in England (some of which are described to the left), you might also like to note that it's not too late to apply for two of the awards in The British Quality Foundation's awards and recognition programmes (see "A chance to celebrate success" below). |
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Essential HR and other policies
In March this year the BIS (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) published a research paper (Employer Perceptions and Impact of Employment Regulation) that found that small employers have an inflated idea of the risks of dismissing employees and that those that viewed employment law as burdensome often did not understand the law, considering the UK actually has one of the most lightly regulated and flexible employment systems in the world. The same research also found that those organisations that had written employment policies were more confident about being compliant with regulations, whilst those with only informal processes were more worried about litigation and compliance.
Clearly written policies that are regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes both in your organisation in legislation will help your managers and employees understand the procedures they must follow, provide your employees with both guidance and a means of resolving any problems and also protect and your organisation against potential breaches of employment law. As well as making you feel more in control, having documented policies, processes or standards will mean that in the unpleasant event of an industrial tribunal resulting from the action of an individual manager, if that individual manager has not followed your clearly documented and communicated policy, there will be far less blame attached to your organisation as a whole, as opposed to theblame attached to the individual manager concerned, than if you had no clear policy for the manager to follow.
The following are those policies considered by HR experts to be advisable for even the smallest businesses.
- Absence and sick pay reporting
- Bullying and harassment
- Disciplinary procedure
- Equal opportunity
- Grievance procedure
- Health and Safety policy.
- IT and computer use
- Maternity, adoption, paternity, parental leave and dependent leave
- Whistleblowing
There are also other areas where it is advisable to have written policies in place, both to facilitate compliance with legislation and to ensure your organisation's processes are efficiently and effectively operated to meet your customers' requirements.
Some examples are -
- Environment and energy management
- Quality management
- Information systems and security
- Business Continuity
- Risk Management
- Health & Safety
Most small organisations will not have in house experts in these areas, but expertise could be brought in to help develop and/or review such policies. For additional assurance, the policies can also be linked to documented processes and an appropriate externally certified standard (see our article on Standards below) e.g. Investors in People for employee related policies, ISO 14001 for environmental policies and so on. At ley hill solutions we have a strong track record in helping people to develop and document policies and processes that both meet accredited standards and enhance performance. |
 Our Toolkit - Standards
Standards are a tried and tested way of helping organisations of all types and sizes improve their product or service quality, improve performance, reduce risk, become more sustainable and in many cases compete more effectively. Because they are defined by a specialist body external to the organisation, they give users of its products or services confidence that what that organisation is providing is of a suitable standard to be able to do the job it is expected to do.
The oldest national standards-making body in the world is The British Standards Institution (now called BSI Group), formed in 1901 and incorporated under Royal Charter in 1929.
 Their BSI Kitemark™ can be seen on many British products and they are still actively developing new standards e.g. BS 13500, the very recently developed national governance standard. However, increasing globalisation over the past three decades has seen an almost complete move towards international standards and many of the old BS (British Standard) numbers have been replaced by those of the ISO (International Standards Organisation), an organisation founded in 1947, since when it has published more than 19,500 International Standards covering almost all aspects of technology and business.
Reflecting our own specific range of skills and experience, the standards in the ley hill solutions Toolkit are management system standards, which define how an organisation should run or operate in relation to a specific set of criteria. These criteria could relate, for example, to the management of the quality of the product or service provided to the customer (ISO 9001) - see here for a complete list of the standards in our Toolkit. Some are specific to individual business sectors or industries, such as the UK rail industry, where Link-Up is required for organisations to be allowed to work on the Rail Network.
There can be many routes to achieving some of these standards e.g. there are many consultancies and agencies "selling" support for ISO 9001 certification, often for an attractively small fee, but not all work with certification bodies accredited by UKAS. In each European Union country there is only one approved national accreditation body and in the UK this is UKAS, the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, which has been approved by HM Government. There have been instances, where suppliers are required to have certification of a particular standard in order to satisfy an obligatory customer requirement, that they have achieved, for example 1SO 9001 or ISO 14001, only to be told by their prospective customer that they will not recognise it because it has been certified by a body that does not have UKAS accreditation. Caveat emptor!
ley hill solutions only works with certification bodies accredited by UKAS (in the UK) or the approved national body in other countries. This ensures that any system we develop and implement for clients is appropriate for their needs and approved by a recognised body.
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 A chance to celebrate success
The British Quality Foundation, who every year organise the UK Excellence Award, run a number of other awards and recognition programmes for organisations of all sizes and sectors. Two of these have closing deadlines this month and as they require less preparation, documentation and management time than the Excellence Award itself, it is not too late to consider applying. They will be presented along with UK Excellence Award at the prestigious UK Excellence Awards Ceremony, which is often attended by HRH The Princess Royal and will be held this year on Thursday 17 October at The InterContinental hotel in London's Park Lane.
The closing date for The Achievement Awards is Friday 10 May 2013. These recognise exceptional achievement across the main areas of an organisation's operation and whole organisations, units, teams or individuals from any sector or business size may enter.
The closing date for The Lean Six Sigma Award is Friday 17 May 2013. This recognises exceptional performance improvement projects based on Lean Six Sigma. |
ley hill solutions aims to be one of Europe's most innovative consultancy organisations specialising in the tools and methods to improve the way your business works and performs. We use internationally recognised standards and frameworks such as
Please contact us at ley hill solutions if we can be of any assistance.
Sincerely,
Graham Hull
ley hill solutions limited
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The information provided in this newsletter and on our website is as correct and up to date as we can make it. no warranty, express or implied, is given regarding its accuracy. We do not accept any liability for errors or omissions. We shall not be liable for any damages (including, without limitation, damage for loss of business or loss of profits) arising from the use of, or inability to use, this site or any information contained it it, or from any action or decision taken as a result of using this site, or any such information.
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