Our approach to employment contracts and policies

It’s absolutely essential that any HR consultant thinking of working as one of our partners feels an affinity with (and is therefore comfortable and credible selling!) our approach to providing HR services to small business clients.

One of the most vital areas to this is our position on drafting employment contracts and policies, so we expect our consultants to follow these principles:

We are absolutely firm in our belief that selling the same standard template contract or handbook to multiple small business clients is unethical. Clearly there are many similarities in documents our many clients use, but we have come across many small business owners who have encountered problems because the standard documents sold to them by an alternative provider are just not suitable, either missing out something vital, or containing vast quantities of text which are irrelevant and therefore meaning none of it is being read.

We therefore work with new clients to identify exactly what documents they need in their business. This will vary depending on things like the workforce profile, the activities of the business, and the approach and preferences of the business owner.

Our standpoint is that most small organisations benefit from having the policies and contract clauses they will actually use and need, and no more than that. Of course there are some things each business must have to comply with legal requirements, but other than those, document drafting has to be about that particular client and what will work for them.

Documents should be drafted in a tone and level of detail that suits the individual business. Usually this is a very down-to-earth, practical and clear tone, and without excessive unnecessary detail, but it needs to ‘match’ any existing documents as well as the culture of the business.

We also look to amend existing documents rather than selling new ones, where this is appropriate. This is because again we consider it unethical to say to a business owner they must have brand new everything, if there actually are only limited things wrong with what they have, and a good edit/update would be sufficient.

Some of the above principles may on the face of it reduce our consultants’ profitability. But we think that longer term, it enhances their credibility and builds trust, which keeps clients coming back and keeps referrers sending clients our way.

If you like the idea of providing tailored, down to earth advice to SME’s in your area, do get in touch.