Dr Mark Gilman, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management, Kent Business School, University of Kent comments on the following BBC news item:
‘Cable to cap unfair dismissal payouts’
When is the UK going to sit up and understand that competitiveness and growth rely on efficient performance and competitive advantage: not flexible labour markets or reducing the regulatory burden on SMEs. Reducing the employers burden for unfair dismissal is not going to improve the situation for the UKs SME community. I agree wholeheartedly that the clue is in the term ‘unfair dismissal’! What we need to do is to concentrate on making sure that we are avoiding scenarios where employees are being unfairly dismissed.
In an age where the experience and knowledge of everyone within an organisation is an integral part of building success we should be concentrating our efforts on educating and assisting owner managers regarding what this means and how they go about ensuring that their business and their employees all benefit from good working practices and efficient processes, established by consulting and involving the whole organisation in creating and achieving their strategic objectives.
I work very closely with high performing SMEs who want to absorb new knowledge and techniques for growth. What they find difficult is being as strategic as they would like and doing so with their most valuable assets – people! After a little time and effort real benefits appear (See for example the BIG Journey Programme). Is it really that difficult to focus on these positive win-win approaches rather than reinforce a negative lose-lose approach.