Staff woes, getting ready to chuck it all in

[LeeGray]

1 hour ago, Gary Prentice said:

I don't know why, but I thought the position/role had to become redundant, not the employee.

He was made redundant because he was no longer suitable for the job. Chronic back pain and gut problems not being ideal for a hands on labourers role in often remote conditions. There’s an obligation to try to find another role within the organisation or to adapt to the new capacity of the employee but both are impossible for us given the nature of the work and our size and job centre advisor/accountant couldn’t see a problem. To be fair and hopefully going for me he’d had plenty of time off at full pay and I’d try to do what I could but needs must and there’s no way I could pay long term sick if it came to that and hire on a subby to cover as well. 

Lesson learned and I’d now only use self employed at a higher rate for jobs as and when. 

[donnk]

47 minutes ago, LeeGray said:

He was made redundant because he was no longer suitable for the job. Chronic back pain and gut problems not being ideal for a hands on labourers role in often remote conditions. There’s an obligation to try to find another role within the organisation or to adapt to the new capacity of the employee but both are impossible for us given the nature of the work and our size and job centre advisor/accountant couldn’t see a problem. To be fair and hopefully going for me he’d had plenty of time off at full pay and I’d try to do what I could but needs must and there’s no way I could pay long term sick if it came to that and hire on a subby to cover as well. 

Lesson learned and I’d now only use self employed at a higher rate for jobs as and when. 

You broke the law.

 

It's the job that is redundant not the employee. 

 

He could take you to cleaners with compo. 

 

Sad but thats the system, small firms should only take on subbies just too expensive otherwise. Same with females of breeding age way to expensive to even consider. 

[Arboricultured]

PAYE in arb is certainly becoming less and less attractive to employers, and the situation needs sorting, and soon.
The amount of ads on here and elsewhere advertising for full time staff on a SE basis is ridiculous.
Full time SE is totally illegal.
No grey area, it’s illegal.

All true but the reality of the industry is that there are a lot of low or mid skilled operatives who don’t really give a crap if you pay them £100 a day on the books when they could get £120 self employed and put everything through as expenses. So option one is a lower skilled worker who costs you more money on the books who takes home less themselves or the same worker who takes home more at the end of it all who costs you considerably less as well. Not to mention that you could pay a bit more when the need arises and get in someone who really knows their job. Oh and have a lot less hassle. I don’t see it changing any time soon, legal or not.

[maybelateron]

I run a very small tree firm. I used to have two full time employees, now I am down to one. I run top quality kit, and two of us can do a lot of the jobs I book in. I have a long time subby, and also a more recent one,  who I use for larger jobs. One of them has a decent arb truck.

This way I dont have to worry about finding enough work for a larger number of employees. I dont have the cost of a second trunk either.

One of the key points HMRC make is that if you use a self employed subby on a regular basis, doing regular days, you have to put them on PAYE. My subbies do irregular sessions, can be without them for three weeks, then have them for 3 days in the next week. Totally legitimate, but this way of working gives me less hassle with staffing.

Also, as I am lucky enough to have a lot of good kit, my subbies use us for their larger jobs at times. Seems like a win win.

[benedmonds]

52 minutes ago, donnk said:

..., small firms should only take on subbies just too expensive otherwise. Same with females of breeding age way to expensive to even consider. 

We have discussed the use of freelancers/subbies on here endlessly, the HMRC will class most of the so called subbies  as employees.. If you are treating them as self employed you could end up in trouble and taken to an employment tribunal and liable to pay unpaid tax, holidays, sick and even unfair dismissal.. 

 

I hope you never get a woman applying for a job, you could be done for sex discrimination and sued without even employing someone......

 

 

[Arboricultured]

Divide and conquer. [emoji6]

[Squaredy]

1 hour ago, benedmonds said:

I hope you never get a woman applying for a job, you could be done for sex discrimination and sued without even employing someone......

You are right of course, but isn't the law crazy? 

 

It may never happen, but in theory a young woman could be taken on for arb work, and within a few months of starting she could go on sick leave (bearing in mind a pregnant woman cannot safely lift brash or logs, or anything really physical) and then after maybe 7 months of sick leave have six or nine months maternity leave, and this may well be repeated a year or two later. 

 

With the best will in the world if you are a very small business maybe taking on your only employee or perhaps your second you would be a fool not to consider the possibilities.  And as has just been pointed out, the obvious alternative of treating her as a subbie has now been made effectively impossible.

 

Of course for slightly larger firms it is different, there may be other duties that could be offered and they may be better placed to take the hit, but for a tiny business existing on a knife-edge it could be very scary.

[donnk]

2 hours ago, benedmonds said:

We have discussed the use of freelancers/subbies on here endlessly, the HMRC will class most of the so called subbies  as employees.. If you are treating them as self employed you could end up in trouble and taken to an employment tribunal and liable to pay unpaid tax, holidays, sick and even unfair dismissal.. 

 

I hope you never get a woman applying for a job, you could be done for sex discrimination and sued without even employing someone......

 

 

yes thats the theory.

 

In practice no small firm can afford, or morally should, pay someone who is not working.

 

I'd put the firm into admin/pre-pack first.

 

As for breeding age females. As far as your firm is concerned it is the same as 9 months off on the sick. Again having to pay for no work.

 

[Burgess]

13 hours ago, benedmonds said:

I hope you never get a woman applying for a job, you could be done for sex discrimination and sued without even employing someone......

 

 

 

Someone describing women as "females of breeding age" makes my skin crawl