Concrew Training

The following 11 landmark court and employment tribunal cases should reach a legal conclusion in 2015.    All have the potential to make significant impact on UK business.  Concrew Training's good practice workshops on employment law , equality and diversity will be updated on an ongoing basis to reflect the very latest developments Meaning of ‘temporary’ agency worker -   Moran v Ideal Cleaning Services The Court of Appeal will decide if agency workers placed on assignment for indefinite periods fall within employment protection offered by the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which refer only to ‘ temporary’ assignments . The Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that they do not if the assignment lacks a defined period. Permanent health insurance and TUPE -  BT Management Services v Edwards : Last year, a Tribunal decided that when an employer outsourced its field operations, a telecoms engineer in receipt of permanent health insurance was not part ...

Hardly a week goes by without some form of bullying or harassment being reported in the press or media.   Bullying and harassment takes on many forms, many offenders don't even realise they are bullying and too many staff and managers ignore the problem or shy away from addressing it.  Add this to the all too common attitude " it doesn't happen here " and the scale of the challenge starts to become apparent For example Ofsted recently highlighted " very very bad homophobic bullying" at North East free schools Regardless of its source, bullying can have serious negative effects on staff and students alike including increased: Worry and anxiousness Absenteeism and low productivity Lowered self-esteem and a depressed state of mind Health related problems such as eating disorders, stomach upset and insomnia Trouble with relationships both at home and work due to worry over work Workplace bullying is also bad for business, with or...

The UK has had equal pay laws in place for many years now but UK national statistics still show the gaps and differences to be significant.   Women are paid less than men.  Full staff receive more than their part time equivalents. For the disabled and those from minority groups the gaps and differences are often far greater.  If organisations and business in the UK are struggling to deliver equal pay the problem world wide will be far far greater.   Join the campaign to fight for equal pay by clicking this link and then one of the Social Media support buttons All we need is one support click from each reader to make the social media campaign go viral and raise the profile of unequal pay and the need for all companies to conduct robust equal pay audits Whilst most organisations, businesses and employers believe they offer equal pay and benefits even the largest and most respected can find their staff think differently.  In 2014 workers from th...

It is the dream of every marketeer, using social media, that one of their posts will go viral.   Crowd Funding is usually associated with lots of people contributing small amounts of money to buy something big, ie they own a very small share of it.  With social media people to join together in order to help get a positive message heard around the web.  Rather than donating money to a campaign or fundraiser, all you have to donate is one Tweet, LinkedIn post post once  By having everyone share this positive message at the same time and date, it allows for more people to see it while they are online.  This allows for more awareness to be raised by having an organized social media sharing frenzy! well that's the concept. Give it try now follow the link below and click on the Twitter, Linkedin logo  Teaching and Training Needs Re-Energising ( you will need to be logged into your appropriate Twitter or Linkedin account to do so ) #teaching ...

Lets face it most of us whether we like it or not have our preferred ways of doing things. Things we like and things we don't.  Teachers and Trainers are no exception. Teachers and trainers frequently understand a wide and very diverse range of teaching skills and techniques but many tend, after a while, to focus on a much smaller range of personally favoured approaches.  Overtime this can lead to their teaching, from a students perspective becoming somewhat boring and increases the risk that students pupils and learners will become disengaged and their learning and progression will slow down. This is not to say that teachers and trainers themselves are weak or poor but rather many lessons are in urgent need of external input and stimulation. With sheer workload and time pressures teachers and trainers operate under these days there is little opportunity for them to self reflect on issues like this - let alone find the time to explore latest approaches or develop new...

The government has today (13 January 2015) outlined the next step in apprenticeship reform, making the pledge to give employers direct control of funding for the training of apprentices. Giving employers control of apprenticeship funding will enable them to select the training that best meets their skills needs and will drive up the quality of apprenticeships. The government response outlines, that while putting employers in control of apprenticeship funding is a non-negotiable part of the reforms, it is clear from the feedback received that further detailed design work is needed before there can be a final decision on how this would work in practice. The government is committed to delivering a simple, effective funding process which works for employers of all sizes and further collaboration with the sector will take place to ensure this is achieved. Publishing the response to   The Future of Apprenticeships in England: Funding Reform Technical Consultation , the government o...

Character Education in the UK - DfE Awards From 7 January 2015 schools and organisations will be able to submit an   online application   to be recognised as a leader in character education through the 2015   DfE   Character Awards. Applicants should be able to prove their programme develops character traits, attributes and behaviours that underpin success in school and work, including: perseverance, resilience and grit confidence and optimism motivation, drive and ambition neighbourliness and community spirit tolerance and respect honesty, integrity and dignity conscientiousness, curiosity and focus The government wants to celebrate the excellence and diversity in this field, recognising that character is already being encouraged, nurtured and developed alongside academic rigour through a variety of programmes in and outside schools across the county. Character education can be found within a school’s ethos, in the classroom and on the playground, ...

Why you need a Policy NOW ! Two recent Employment Tribunal cases, one involving Face book and another one with Twitter have one clear message in common for modern employers – the urgent need to have clear up to date, precise policies and procedures in place about the use of Social Media at work. Both the cases profiled below could have been lost by the employer had they not previously taken proactive policy steps to keep up to date with an ever changing scene. Face Book The Face Book case arose from an unfair dismissal claim. The Employment Tribunal held that a pub manager was fairly dismissed for gross misconduct after she made inappropriate comments on Face book about two customers who had verbally abused and threatened her.   The Face Book chat took place while the employee was at work and did not reflect her upset or anger at the customers, but appeared to be a joke between friends.  However, a wider audience was able to look at her Face Book page, in...

A recent enquiry for recruitment training prompted us to review our back catalogue of training courses on staff, recruitment, selection and retention.  In doing so we identified a number of common and recurring topics plus a few rarer ones. We have now worked these up into distinct modules allowing our customers and clients to build bespoke courses from preset modules.   Using these pre developed modules speeds up development time and reduces the costs associated with bespoke training.   As always we still strive to include client specific processes, procedures and documentation but with the modular format course development is far far easier More information here #hr #humanresources #training #management # leadership #staffing #fe #schools

All Managers within Further Education need to ensure the time they spend on improving the quality of teaching training and learning will deliver the results they seek in the minimum amount of time and with the least amount of burden. This new course from Concrew Training explores the Teaching Learning and Assessment Improvement Strategies that have proved effective in delivering outstanding teaching, learning and assessment within Further Education. That is what works and what does not! More Information Here #fe #furthereducation #teachers #education #ofsted #learning #edchat

At least a 15% discount on all Concrew Training Courses booked before 23 January 2015    Contact Concrew Training today for a best price quote To celebrate the New Year and the launch of our new look web site we are offering at least 15% off all courses and workshops booked before 23rd January 2015 Courses can be delivered up to 3 months ahead, longer in some situations and usually no payment is usually required until after the training has been completed. #fe #schools #hr #training #management #humanresources #ceo