People Matter - January 2026
HR Dept
New Year HR housekeeping
Perhaps you’ve already set yourself (and given up on!) some personal New Year’s resolutions. But what about your business.
You may work with a coach on some long-term goals, but for short-term impact in January and February, getting your HR house in order is a useful place to devote some energy – especially with the full force of the Employment Rights Bill starting to take effect just a few months later. So where could you begin?
Policies and contracts – It is always a good time of year in January to review your policies and contracts. This year, major changes to things like statutory sick pay, paternity leave and unpaid parental leave in April, and then further big changes in the ensuing months mean that it’s more important than ever to be on top of it now.
Get the balance right between being prepared for known changes and flexible for others that may be released in the coming weeks and months, to ensure you do not have to revise your policies again unnecessarily later on.
Employee engagement – Working on your company culture and employee engagement can be crucial for productivity, recruitment and retention. There are many ways you can do this and some will be more appropriate for your business than others.
Don’t have a good handle on what staff think of working for you? Why not set up an employee survey to ask them their opinion, or probe in staff appraisals? Sensing things are a little flat? How about a social event, charity drive or a staff competition to encourage high performance?
Staff training – Partly linked to employee engagement, but also an important part of your performance management, think carefully about staff training goals for 2026. Where do you need them to upskill and what are they interested in improving on?
Think also about compliance with new rules such as those in the Workers Protection Act, and more generally about training in your business. For example, could you make it a project for this year to improve your induction training for all future new recruits?
Check out our article further on in this newsletter on eLearning courses.
HR compliance calendar – With so many things happening in 2026 (and 2027 for that matter) your future self will thank you later, if you take the time to map out the key dates of what you need to do and when. On an online calendar or project management tool, or a simple desk diary – whatever works best for you.
Budgeting for statutory pay changes in April
As is the case every April, statutory pay rates are changing. While it is unlikely as an SME that every single one of them will be relevant to you in the upcoming year, it is wise to keep your payroll up to date and have in mind what each statutory pay level is, for if or when they should be required.
To get you prepared here’s a summary of what is changing and how.
Most statutory payments are paid at the same rate. This includes maternity, paternity, shared parental, adoption, parental bereavement and neonatal care leave. These are currently £187.18 per week. From 1st April, this rises to £194.32 per week for each statutory pay.
Almost certainly of top relevance for you, though, will be changes to statutory sick pay. This is currently £118.75 per week, and from 1st April this will rise to £123.25. Although a much lower sum than the other statutory pays, the government has reformed how it is paid as part of the Employment Rights Bill (also from 1st April), meaning it is much more often that you will be likely to have to pay it.
Instead of being paid from day four of illness will be paid from day one and the lower earnings limit is removed. This all means a bigger budget will need to be allocated for this mandatory requirement.
For help getting ready for this, or any other payroll support, get in touch.
The Night Manager
Are you a night manager? Not a character in a John le Carre novel/TV series, but someone in charge of people working night shifts.
Recently, attention has been drawn to the lot of such workers, even suggesting they may suffer certain forms of pay inequality based on the difficulty associated with being at work at night.
There is nothing formal in the pipeline for this specific issue, but you could review your business’s attitude towards these important workers. Areas highlighted include difficulty commuting when transport networks close down, stress and anxiety from the isolation that some roles come with and a lack of access to affordable food.
You may find that understanding any issues and engaging with staff on them helps you drive performance and makes recruitment and retention easier. Then everyone’s a winner.
Papering over the cracks
Many a phrase is coined in HR. Following the pandemic we had The Great Resignation and quiet quitting; now we have “quiet cracking”.
Unlike quiet quitting, which is an intentional resolve in employees to do the bare minimum in their role, quiet cracking is an unintentional degradation of their commitment to you.
As the name suggests it happens with little attention drawn to it, and builds up over time from factors like a lack of influence, disappointment, and worry about things out of their control. In real terms these could be not having a voice in meetings, not having a pathway to career progression and experiencing anxiety about change – say the impact of AI.
Good management skills and communication are key mitigations for you. Look out for a lack of energy in team members, address big issues that may affect them openly, and offer genuinely supportive conversations.
You cannot control how people feel, but you can create an environment which gives them the best chance to shine – and a lot of the time feel-good factor and engagement will follow.
eLearning = elation
As we begin 2026, now is a great time to choose how you are going to develop your staff this year. Many businesses will already be discussing this with employees in their appraisals.
We are strong advocates for eLearning as part of the solution. It is affordable, convenient and highly targeted. What’s more, eLearning leaves an easy audit trail to be followed (for proof-of-compliance purposes).
This can be particularly useful in relation to areas where you may need to prove that someone has undergone training, for example with the Worker Protection Act where you will soon need to have taken ALL reasonable steps to prevent harassment/sexual harassment.
We offer a huge range of eLearning courses covering everything from sexual harassment awareness training to problem solving. Sometimes a more in-depth, in-person workshop may be more appropriate. Don’t worry, we offer those too. Just ask if you want to find out more.
54 strikes and you’re out?
Various judges have called a tribunal claimant out for “targeting legal representatives”, pursuing claims in a “personal and vexatious manner” and viewing the tribunal system as a means to “get rich fast”. One judge had just thrown out what he believed to be the 54th claim in these courts.
There has been one successful claim for unlawful deduction of wages which yielded £5,000. But it is believed the others, for things like racial and sexual discrimination, have all been unsuccessful. Nevertheless, employers will have had to fork out hefty sums to defend themselves.
While this is not typical, there is a worry that with tribunal rules set to be significantly relaxed for disgruntled employees to make a claim, the cost of defending dubious claims will only increase. Getting HR right remains essential to running a business.
