Last week I attended an ACAS HR course. When you think of ACAS, you tend to think of their work in workplace mediation, however being a department of the civil service they also provide an abundance of free guides and reasonably priced (and at times free) training courses for both employers and employees, covering everything from flexible working requests to job description templates.
I fell into doing HR when I joined SCCAN and my role evolved as more staff were hired, I then became aware that we needed to understand our legal and ethical requirements as an employer in the climate sector which strives to provide our members with a bit more than the legal requirement. We are fortunate to have HR and payroll support from SCVO for a very reasonable price, they handle all salary, NI and income tax payments and provide policy templates. But I noticed this ACAS course had space in my diary and thought go for it.
Course segments
The course consisted of segments on:
- Equality ( or is it equity there was some attendee discussion on that point), Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing.
- Recruitment and onboarding.
- Writing a sound Statement of Employment or Contract of Employment.
- Good practice when dealing with absence, discipline and performance.(There was talk of the appropriateness of hotpants in the workplace!)
- Different ways to handle employment termination.
Final thoughts
It was good to get formal training and I am heartened to say we are doing a good job of getting things right in the main. However I took away a few thoughts on improvements we could make regarding wellbeing and widening the recruitment pool.
All of the course slides were shared and I am more than happy to chat with anyone who would like more information or advice on all things HR.
You can contact Laura Forde at laura@sccan.scot