Once the transfer of employees under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) completes the legal duty to inform and consult regarding the transfer itself technically ends but taking a full-stop approach can lead employees to resign, raise grievances or otherwise disrupt work or the culture of your organisation through being disgruntled.
It can therefore be helpful to keep your informed and consult mindset firmly in gear in the initial period post transfer.
You also need to keep in mind that if you are proposing redundancies or changing terms you might trigger legal obligations to consult.
In this article we explore the actions you can take post transfer to ensure a smooth transition and limit the risk of employment related claims.
How to bed employees into your existing workforce
You need to think about how to bed your employees in. Starting work with a new company can be daunting for incoming employees and there are also cultural/management changes to consider such as:
- Public sector into private sector.
- Management style.
- Approach to work/tasks.
A great starting place for bedding in new employees is your induction process, which should cover:
- Welcoming employees
- Getting them up to speed with who is who.
- Where to find relevant rules and policies.
- Introduce them to the organisation’s culture and how they can be a part of that; and
- How to raise concerns.
Doing so is in line with ACAS guidance to use the induction process to introduce rules, policies and standards so the employees know what is expected of them.
You could also use a buddy system for new employees, where each transferring employee is buddied with an existing employee. Some things you might want to ask of buddies include:
- Being in the office the day their buddy joins and asking them to show their buddy around.
- Being a point of contact for queries.
- Liaising with IT and helping them use the system.
- Help them arrange any additional training; and
- Take them out for coffee in the first week or month, if you have the budget to support this.
Addressing any differences in terms
You should ensure employees understand the reasons for the differences and ensure that HR teams are equipped to deal with these questions. Practical steps you can take can include producing FAQs which might answer some of the more common questions.
What to include will depend on the circumstances of the transfer but some things to think about will include:
- Explaining why colleagues might be on different terms.
- How the transfer in will impact office seating.
- How it will impact on shared services, in terms of who will be the point of contact, any changes to process and any impact of turn around times.
- Any other practical issues which arise from the two different sets of terms.
- Confirmation of where each groups’ policies and procedures can be found.
Get HR setup to run different processes
You need to brief HR to help them remember that different terms and policies might apply, as effectively having two tiers of workforce with different terms can potentially cause complexity when seeking to run HR processes.
Training HR to be aware of the difference and ensuring you have effective systems in place to ensure the correct process is followed will be vital in seeking to avoid an inadvertent breach of contract.
Setting up payroll
One issue that may arise is where transferring employees have a different contractual pay date to existing employees. In this situation, it would be best to initially ensure you are set up to run two different pay dates if the date is contained in the contracts, to ensure that there is no breach of contract.
If the dates are very close together anyway, you may at a later stage be able to move the employees to the same date with their agreement, since in most cases it should not cause an issue. However, if the change is quite substantial then you should take a cautious approach and not simply impose the change to make the process simpler, as there could be a risk of a claim.
Being clear and consulting with the employees about the change is vital to ensure they are not put in a financial risk position as a result of the change and to enable time to change any direct debits.
Confirm the transfer
You should ensure that you put in writing any changes to the transferring employees’ terms and conditions of employment, for example the name and address of their new employer and check they understand the terms which transferred over with them. There can be a legal obligation to notify staff of changes to their terms and conditions of employment under section 4 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
Maintain and build engagement
Once settled in you should maintain the momentum by:
- Holding regular team meetings to integrate any new employees with their line managers and existing staff.
- Listen to employee suggestions and arrange discussions to generate ideas to improve processes – this could help identify and resolve problems early; and
- Make sure line managers support employees while they’re adjusting to change.
If you require advice on any element of a TUPE transfer, or have concerns about this then please contact our Employment team on 0345 450 5558 or enquiries@stephens-scown.co.uk.