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26 July 2018. It’s fair to say that employees are the life force of your business. Without the best employees around, your company will struggle on the market. Your reputation will take a serious hit, and your customer reception will be in the dumps. While all this is true, it can’t be ignored that employees can cause or be part of the biggest headaches that you’ll face as a business owner. Let’s look at some of the issues that employees can be a part of, how to solve them or just avoid them completely.
Personal injuries
The first issue that you must be aware of is personal injury claims. Personal injuries have become a major problem for businesses. It’s become such a terrible issue that the UK government has actually considered abolishing and changing laws that allow injured employees to sue businesses. In the USA there are thousands of PI claims every year and while you might dismiss them, be aware they can result in damages ranging in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Small business won’t survive that bill, so what can you do?
Well, you can arrange workers compensation. This means that if an employee is injured, they’ll get the compensation they need and won’t need to sue. You can also make sure that your business has the best general liability insurance package available that will provide the protection you need.
Holiday leave and sick days
What do you do when your employees head off on holiday through the summer months? Suddenly, you can find yourself with an office that is half empty. Does that sound familiar? Of course, it does because it affects every business. The answer is that you need to hire temp staff, but unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Try hiring employees and telling them they’ll only be needed for a few weeks or even a few days and see what happens. The answer is nothing.
The solution is to instead use a temp agency. They’ll get the workers you need for you, and they’ll make sure they are aware they’re only needed part-time. There’s nothing more awkward or difficult than hiring someone part-time who think they are becoming a main part of the team. This does happen, often due to mistakes managing the situation.
Harassment and bullying
It’s important to be aware that physical injuries aren’t the only issue that can lead to a lawsuit with your employees. You need to watch out for problems with bullying and harassment as well. Sexual harassment is a particularly prominent issue today, and it does exist in almost every industry. If you want to avoid the lawsuits you need to stamp it out, recognizing what behavior is acceptable and what isn’t.
Poor customer interaction
Finally, you might find that some employees are rubbing customers the wrong way. Customer service is a part of virtually every job and position these days. If you have employees that aren’t able to fulfill this area of the job, you need to find someone who can before it starts to impact the business reputation.
Editor’s note: Opinions in this post are those of the contributor and not Science & Enterprise.
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