An area of serious risk for small employers is the whole area of human relations, disciplinary procedures, workplace investigations, and so forth.
The larger employer has HR departments or a number of HR professionals on their payroll. They may even have in house legal counsel and/or external solicitors on retainer.
But the small employer who cannot justify full time HR personnel and/or legal counsel are at serious risk when it comes to carrying out a workplace investigation and disciplinary process.
Yes, some pay for ongoing yearly advice from a provider like Peninsula, and some may be members of a professional representative body like the Small Firms Association or IBEC.
Many small employers do not have any dedicated support in the area of people management and human resources.
These employers are playing with fire if they make a mess of a disciplinary leading to a termination of employment.
Because there are countless cases every month from the Workplace Relations Commission and the courts which see costly awards being made for the employee for breach of their employment rights.
For example, the Killarney Advertiser has been ordered to pay €45,000 to a former employee who brought a claim that she was fired for raising a health and safety issue and protected disclosure in the workplace.
Another employer was ordered to pay €42,000 to a former employee who it fired for reasons that were unclear. This could have been avoided if the employer commenced a proper redundancy procedure.
One piece of advice that the small employer would need to heed: get advice before you terminate, not after.
Learn more about employment law in Ireland in my book.
