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Employee absence is an unavoidable reality in every workplace. Illness, injury and health conditions will occasionally prevent employees from attending work. For employers, how absence is managed can make a significant difference to employee wellbeing, productivity and workplace culture. According to CIPD data for 2025, UK employees were absent from work due to sickness for…
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9 March 2026

Employee departures are a normal part of running any business. Whether someone resigns, retires, or moves on to a new opportunity, how you manage the end of employment matters just as much as how you manage recruitment and onboarding. For SMEs, having a clear employee offboarding process helps protect the organisation, maintain professionalism, and ensure…
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2 March 2026

Probation periods have become more common in contracts in recent years as employers use them as a way to manage performance during the initial stages of employment. The first few months of employment are important for any business but for SMEs they are even more significant as getting a new hire wrong can have a…
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23 February 2026

When you employ staff, it is inevitable that at some point conflict and disagreement will occur. In fact, a recent survey found that 44% of working age adults in the UK experienced some form of conflict at work in 2025 so it is perhaps more common than you think. How your company deals with conflict…
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16 February 2026

What Is Employee Onboarding? Employee onboarding is the process of welcoming and integrating a new hire into your organisation. It’s more than just filling out paperwork; it includes introducing employees to company culture, systems, processes, and colleagues. A good onboarding experience sets the tone for a new hire’s entire journey, helping them understand their role…
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9 February 2026

Managing poor performance is one of the more challenging aspects of people management. For employers, it can feel uncomfortable to raise concerns about an employee’s work, particularly where relationships are longstanding or the reasons for underperformance are unclear. However, avoiding the issue rarely helps and when poor performance is not addressed in a timely manner,…
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2 February 2026

Pay transparency is becoming an increasingly important topic for employers. Employees are asking more questions about how pay decisions are made, how salaries compare across teams, and whether pay structures are genuinely fair. While full pay transparency is not a legal requirement, expectations around openness and fairness are growing, particularly in relation to equal pay….
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26 January 2026

For many SMEs, the first year of employment is the biggest challenge when it comes to staff retention. New starters often leave before they’ve properly settled in, and high staff turnover becomes costly, disruptive and damaging to morale. That said, SMEs can significantly improve employee retention during those early months by putting a few simple…
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19 January 2026

Creating a positive performance management culture is one of the most powerful things any employer can do to boost engagement, improve results and support long-term growth. Yet for many organisations, performance management still feels like a chore, an annual formality in which people go through the motions, rather than a meaningful process that everyone engages…
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12 January 2026