6 Dec 2019

I have used the term ‘duty of care’, in more than one context this week and have expected others to understand the meaning of this, which fundamentally is ‘a moral or legal obligation to ensure the safety or well-being of others’.

As an employer, there is so much responsibility to ensure that the right thing is done, be that offering a safe environment to work from, offering a range of benefits to support employees or simply having, open and honest conversations so that the basic level of trust is maintained. The consequences in Law are steep, as they should be, to protect both parties.

Employees also have a duty of care, to themselves and others. In this, I mean, your actions when fulfilling your everyday job. This could be the impact of your own poor performance on other team members, actions which bring the team or reputation of the company under the spotlight. It could be the way you speak to someone, without understanding or thinking about the impact of your words.

An effective HR strategy should set the tone for the company-

Functionally to provide the right tools, contracts, policies to help educate, sets the boundaries and the expectations and ensure fairness across all employees.

The design and development of a culture which understands that at the foundations of a successful company, people, working together, towards a shared goal creates an invisible bond. However, packaged and presented, this is what engages people and motivates.

Development of skills and ensuring high performance in every role, not only assists commercially but is utilising the time in the right way v battling the ER issues which take up so much time unnecessarily.

The behaviours and styles of leadership to steer and keep going into the right way, HR need to be at the table to influence this and it baffles me when a senior team doesn’t include HR, why wouldn’t you?

So, next time you hear the term duty of care, take a moment to think from all perspectives what this really means and how much the invisible agreement between employer and employee really means, don’t take for granted a good employer, equally value and protect those good employees!

#challenge #100days #HR #dutyofcare