Mark Ellis Blog

The new mantra of many politicians is “social responsibility”. Great. No doubt that will make for a more caring society.

Social responsibility can only be a good thing – but will it make for a happy and successful UK? That depends, I guess, on what makes UK plc and each of us feel happy and successful.

Call me old fashioned but I think that the success of UK plc and the happiness and success of its people are inextricably linked to the self worth, work and the wealth of its people.

And so to the point of this posting: It’s entrepreneurial employers that create and sustain jobs and income for the great majority. Employment laws that give aggrieved employees the right to claim huge compensation from employers might be just redemption in the eyes of the aggrieved employee – but shouldn’t we consider the bigger picture?

Compensation (if you are not protected by Ellis Whittam!) paid by an employer to the aggrieved employee comes straight off the bottom line – it can reduce competitiveness or is taken out of the R&D budget or creates wider job insecurity. Sometimes all three!

Sure, as a responsible society we need a set of basic laws/rights that guarantee the safety, dignity and minimum wage for all workers. But I suspect that I speak for a silent majority of employers when I say that silly amounts of compensation awarded to a sacked employee, particularly against a small employer, are bad for business, can put an entire business at risk and are bad for UK plc.

Back to that catchy mantra of modern politicians, “social responsibility”. I wonder where Mr Cameron and his socially responsible Conservatives stand on this? I’m sure that thousands of entrepreneurial employers would like to know. So, come on David, come out and tell us! Have your Conservatives turned a sharp left or do you recognise that hundreds of fluffy employment protection rights are bad for UK plc? (I’ll copy this posting to his website and let’s see if we get a reply!)

To cut to the chase - should an employee whom an entrepreneurial (job and wealth creating) employer deems to be wrong for the job have any right of comeback if he/she is sacked? Besides, if the economy is booming the sacked worker will find a new job quickly (if he/she really wants to). Are the feelings and the personal hardship suffered by an individual employee more important than the success and happiness of UK plc? It’s a tough call. What do you think?

Happy New Year and all that!

Most EW clients had a few days off over Christmas and so the office was reasonably quiet. Phew! However, the fun started quickly when most clients returned to work on 2 January.

You might be surprised (amused?) at some of the antics that go on at work Christmas parties up and down the UK! Of course, kill joys that we are here at EW, we did our best to help avoid problems (some said that we were trying to spoil the fun) by suggesting that clients put in place a Christmas Party Policy and send a memo to staff reminding them of the rules before the party! Anyway, despite our best efforts, we didn’t spoil all the fun! Here are some examples of incidents reported to us last week: