Last month, all talk of business and employment law was dominated by
the controversial Beecroft report. With the deficit crisis that has hit
Britain over recent years, the report called for businesses to be able
to manage their own affairs more effectively – mainly by chopping and
changing employees easily. This has been talked about online and
offline, leading people to seek more information from online resources
and experts. Let us see if we can shine some more light on it...
Ultimately, the idea is that by being able to get rid of
underperforming staff easily, small and medium enterprises will grow
better. Unemployment is a huge issue and it is important that companies
and enterprises can take on more staff without the worry of how to
control the workforce. This is particularly true within SMEs, but how
will they be affected by the latest ideas?
Less red tape
It is a thought across the board that red tape hampers SMEs far more
than it should. This is counter-intuitive too because for the economy to
rise again, the impetus is on the smaller businesses to grow. So, with
this in mind, the thought of being able to get rid of employees who
drain business resources can be met with happiness to start with.
In Britain as a whole, we have seen an increase of toleration, and
this isn’t what we need to aid productivity. And when you consider this
point, SMEs will be more willing to take someone on if they know that
they aren’t lumbered with them indefinitely. The three-month probation
period has been the only way of screening until this point but after
that a contract is signed. Though employees may see this as increasing
the pressure, it relieves a lot of the employer.
So, how would things change?
As things stand, anyone who is made redundant is given notice and has
the opportunity to put in a claim to an Employment Tribunal with the
hope of recovering damages. In recent years there has been a change that
means an employee has to be employed for more than two years to make a
claim, and the Beecroft report hopes to take this a step further.
The proposal is for employers to be able to pay a fixed sum to do
away with these claims – a radical move, but one many SMEs support. So,
with businesses potentially able to deal with the outgoing of employees
quickly, the dynamics of the workplace are likely to shift greatly. But,
at the same time there is a worry that employees would take a step back
before challenging the direction a business is taking with the fear of
immediate dismissal.
Overall, it is hard to see why SMEs would not want these ideas in
place. It moves on further to suggest that a business with fewer than 10
employees would be able to get out of many other employment laws.
Controversial isn’t a strong enough word for these proposals but, in the
main, the beneficiaries would be the SMEs and, eventually, the economy
as a whole.
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