During the past 3 years of advising a company, one of the major issues that the company had was fire safety and this topic was regularly discussed and regularly mentioned in numerous reports. In this particular building fire safety was a major issue due to the size, age and nature of the building, being somewhat like a rabbit warren and the fact that very little has been done to the building in its 65-year history. The company had, over this timescale, not done anything about this major issue until it had a visit from the local fire authority. This clearly helped management to focus attention on this issue. Understandably the fire officer was none too pleased to find out that the company had been advised to tackle the many issues surrounding fire safety but had chosen to ignore the advice and guidance given.

The Drury consultant liaised closely with the fire officer and even with the contractors that were being brought in to undertake some of the required work. In conjunction with a detailed fire risk assessment that clearly identified action points to be undertaken within specific timescales, the fire officer decided not to take enforcement action against the company. Had the fire officer taken such action against the company it would have resulted in, at the very least, major disruption to the company operations.

A housing association's clearance staff had on several occasions been in contact with biological (health) hazards from potential needle stick injuries, dog and human excrement and other bodily fluids.

Drury was approached for advice. A Health and Safety consultant prepared and delivered a training course relevant to these hazards within the clients specific field of work.

The follow up from the Housing Association was very positive. All attendees found the course extremely interesting and informative.

A client employed a young person on work experience, conducted a young person's risk assessment, set control measures and allocated supervision. Unfortunately during the young person's lunch break there was a serious accident with site traffic, when he unexpectedly tried to dash through a gap behind a reversing vehicle. This resulted in the loss of a leg and of course an investigation by the HSE. The Drury consultant liaised with the HSE inspectors and explained the procedures in place, also agreeing additional controls required to ensure that such an accident could not happen again.

As a result there was no prosecution of the company by the HSE, although the young person did take out a civil claim for compensation and this still awaits a decision.

A London based construction company was contracted to convert a five storey building in Leeds city centre for its Scottish client.

The contract fell within the scope of the Construction Design and Management Regulations, and as such, required a construction phase health and safety plan to be drawn up and implemented. An anonymous complaint to the enforcing authority led to a visit by a Health and Safety Executive inspector, who found unsafe practices and a construction phase health and safety plan which was wholly inadequate. The inspector immediately issued a prohibition notice preventing any work to be carried out on the site.

Around midday on a Friday, Drury was selected from the Yellow Pages to see if it could help. A Drury consultant attended site that afternoon and gathered information from the project management team, and over the weekend, compiled a specific construction phase health and safety plan. First thing Monday morning a further meeting was held with the project management team to agree the contents of the plan and our proposals for managing the project effectively, closely followed by a meeting between our consultant and the HSE inspector at his office, which resulted in the Prohibition Notice being lifted.

Drury was retained by the construction company, carrying out site inspections on a regular basis, and gave support to the project management team throughout the term of the contract.

HSE took no further action against the construction company and was satisfied with their management of the project.

A metal fabrication client was in the process of transferring to larger, more suitable premises and had requested its designated Drury Health and Safety consultant to visit the new premises prior to moving. During discussions it was identified that the client had received quotes for the installation of four very large fans, which were to be installed on the ridge of the roof some five metres apart. The idea was to extract the fumes from the welding operations and vent to atmosphere.

The consultant pointed out that this was not an option, as any fumes would be drawn straight through the employees' breathing zone in order to reach the fans, also in winter all the heating would be drawn straight out, due to the sheer size of the fans. (It was also suggested in jest due to the long term relationship the consultant had with the client, that safety footwear would need to be upgraded to Divers boots, to prevent employees being sucked into the fans, such was their power).

The solution proposed by Drury's consultant was to purchase portable local extraction units, which were capable of being positioned anywhere within the workshop. These were fully adjustable, such that the small extraction cowl could be positioned directly where the welding was taking place, thus giving total extraction, work space flexibility and a saving of several thousand pounds over the cost quoted for the roof mounted extraction fans.

Two employees, one female and British, and one male and of Pakistani origin, were employed as garment pressers on a piece work basis and were paid according to output and quality. The emphasis of the business changed over time in that more and more garments were imported instead of being made on the premises and there was less and less need for garment pressing.

In order to preserve employment, alternative work was found for these two people in the warehouse at a slightly lower rate of pay to the piece work rate. This did not significantly affect the female employee, as she was not particularly fast, therefore her warehouse wage was almost the same as her piecework earnings.

The male Pakistani employee reluctantly spent most of his time in the warehouse (picking and packing) and began to instigate unrest and discontent within the rest of the workers. In order to resolve the issue, both employees were offered redundancy, as technically their jobs had almost ceased to exist and there was certainly only enough work for one presser for 10 hours per week.

The female employee accepted redundancy. The male employee expressed a wish to remain with the Company but continued to be disruptive.

The hourly rate of pay for picking and packing was geared to efficiency and output. The male employee refused to increase his output until his hourly rate was increased to that of the most efficient employee in the Warehouse. For its part the employer said, "demonstrate that you can work consistently at a more efficient level and we will re-assess your hourly rate". This created a stalemate and the male employee sought advice from a solicitor on the basis of equal pay and race discrimination.

The first the company knew of this was a long letter from a solicitor alleging all sorts of unfair treatment and discrimination by fellow employees and the company and threatening tribunal action.

At this stage Drury became involved and drafted all the letters, to go on the client's headed paper, to the solicitor answering all the points raised and putting everything in a proper perspective. This also involved several meetings at the offices of Drury between the client and the HR Consultant to map out a strategy and agree responses.

The main issues were:-

• Equal pay.
• Discrimination by his line manager.
• Arrears of pay based on the most efficient warehouse worker.
• "Racist" comments by other employees, which went back to two years earlier.

Drury also advised the solicitor that this was an internal issue. The employee had not raised a formal grievance as per the handbook procedure. Furthermore, it was inappropriate for the solicitor to be involved and the less than veiled threat of a tribunal claim would not influence the company's decisions. Also, as the gentleman was still an employee, the company reserved the right to correspond with him directly and not through the solicitor's office. A polite way of saying, "This is none of your business".

(Fortunately there were records of all the employee's work output week by week, which provided objective evidence of this employee's poor performance).

One further point worth mentioning is that this employee's original line manager left. He was in fact very ineffective as a manager. The new manager began to manage the operation, department and staff and insisted on higher standards, not an unreasonable scenario. The employee referred to above resented this and construed his actions as discriminatory with a racial bias.

Over the course of three months, and after much management time, the employer demolished the employee's arguments and he is still employed. Correspondence from the solicitor ceased.

Learning Points:-

• In this world of complex employment law regulations employers do need support and guidance.
• Always engage employees in discussion - do not drive them into the arms of a solicitor.
• Keep good records of meetings and phone calls, you will never regret it.
• Stick to your grievance procedure.
• If you still find yourself on the wrong end of an Employment Tribunal claim you will have all the documentary evidence to mount a robust defence.
• Time spent now may well save an enormous amount of money by way of legal fees and compensation, most especially where issues of race, sex, disability or Health and Safety are concerned where there is no limit to the level of compensation that could be awarded.

Company A assembles items for the retail leisure trade and its work is seasonal. It employs a core staff of approximately 80 management, support and technical staff but has to rely on a significant number of agency workers to work for up to eight or nine months a year according to fluctuating demand.

The Company is a very progressive employer that provides excellent benefits to its permanent employees and it has worked in partnership with a recruitment agency for a number of years for the supply of temporary workers. The agency employs a Site Co-ordinator who is located on site to assist with the day-to-day recruitment and allocation of temporary staff into the various roles.

The Company identified that a significant number of agency staff return to their premises each year. These staff are extremely reliable, hard working and clearly enjoy working with the Company. Some of them have returned to the Company for over five years.

The Operations Director was aware of employment case law that appeared to suggest that workers who had regularly worked for the same company over a period of years had developed an implied contractual relationship with it and could be classified as employees. As such, they would be entitled to claim any rights under the Employment Rights Act 1996.

The Consultant reviewed the case law in this area and established that if “mutuality of obligation” could be established then temporary/agency workers can be classified as permanent employees of the company to which they were assigned.  Furthermore, there was no clear definition as to how long a worker had to work on the premises before becoming potentially eligible to employee status. 

Drury was asked to provide proposals and make recommendations as to how this situation could be managed in future whilst minimising the risk of litigation.

Recommendations  

• Terminate the contract with the current recruitment agency and sign with another agency to provide temporary workers as and when required for shorter term assignments during the season.
• Set up a company database of temporary staff.
• Recruit some workers directly as temporary employees on specific contracts.
• Identify those temporary workers who have provided their services on a regular and longer term basis and recruit them on an employed status.
• Recruit a designated seasonal HR co-ordinator.
  Introduce annualised hours contracts to assist in the management of seasonal assembly.
• Train supervisors in “people management” and company policies and procedures.

An owner of a small company with 6 long serving employees was concerned that he may have difficulties in issuing contracts of employment.

The employees had never been issued with contracts of employment and consequently were suspicious of the reasons for the owner’s sudden change of heart, thinking he may be trying to impose terms and conditions to their disadvantage.

The Drury consultant visited the company and held a briefing with the employees explaining the purpose of contracts of employment, their contents and the legal requirement upon the owner to issue them.

Following the briefing the owner was able to issue the contracts without difficulty.

Company B sells and refits caravans and mobile homes. A long serving employee who is the Shop Manager experienced some domestic problems that started to affect his work. The domestic problems escalated and his work deteriorated significantly. This manifested itself in lateness, rudeness to colleagues, failure to follow the proper company procedures and inflexibility towards both his duties and hours of work.

Drury was contacted for advice on how to manage the situation.

The Director was very concerned both for the individual himself, who used to be extremely hard working and conscientious, but also for the business. Investigations showed that goods were missing from stock and there was no record of them having been paid for. Over the course of six months, the Director met the individual on a number of occasions to explain his concerns and to ask for an improvement in both his attitude and work performance. The employee found it difficult to provide a satisfactory explanation other than he had been affected by the changes in his domestic arrangements. There was little or no improvement and his manner started to have a negative impact on his team who were losing respect for him.

As part of his plan to assist and support the individual, the Director decided to allow him some time out of work with pay. This was in order for the employee to review the situation and decide what he wanted to do. The Director found out the individual had decided to look for other work and agreed with him that he could have the time off for interviews etc,

Several months passed and the individual employee had returned to work but had not had any success in finding alternative employment. His attitude and work performance did not improve.

The Director considered the situation but did not want to pursue formal disciplinary action. Drury advised that one option was to come to a compromise with the individual and detailed the best route to follow. Following a meeting with the individual, a compromise was reached with the employee, whereby he agreed to leave the business for a payment equivalent to that he would have received in a redundancy situation.

Drury prepared and provided the legally binding document and both parties signed an agreement.

As a result of this, the individual employee was able to make a fresh start with another employer and the Company was able to recruit a new Shop Manager and move the business forward.

A textile manufacturer had to implement a major redundancy programme, which included closing one of its factories.

The redundancy consultations were carried out by one of our consultants with the affected employees who worked on day shift, double day shift and night shift. The night shift staff was of various ethnic origins, the majority of whom spoke very little English. The individual staff meetings, which had to be conducted using interpreters, were obviously protracted, as everything had to be repeated. The timescale was quite tight as all the meetings had to be carried out as quickly as possible, so after conducting several interviews with the night shift, our consultant went home to grab a few hours sleep before meeting people on the day shift the next day. The whole redundancy assignment spanned two weeks due to the number of employees affected.

A client notified Drury that a female member of staff was alleging sexual harassment by her boss. The Drury consultant conducted the investigations that followed including interviews and taking statements from those concerned. From what emerged, the recommendation was given that both of the people should have their employment terminated on the grounds of gross misconduct.

The female took action at the Tribunal for unfair dismissal with the consultant's evidence being crucial. After a 2 day hearing the Chairman's decision was that the person had been fairly dismissed.