Here's the full slide deck from our recent "Attract, Recruit, Retain" seminar that you can play straight from this page. Watch the other presentation videos and download slides for each.

Whether you use a recruitment agency or prefer to keep talent acquisition in-house, Chloe Errington-Spurr takes you through a wealth of information to help manage your recruitment better.

Holding on to the talent that you have is as much a challenge as recruiting new team members. Cathy O'Donoghue examines some strategies that might help you plug any talent leaks.

Your employer brand is what your potential new recruits see when sizing up your business as a place to work. Your culture and what you stand for all go towards building the picture. Here, Cathy O'Donoghue explains what an attractive employer brand looks like and why this is critical in today's jobs market. 

Kieran O'Donoghue looks at the factors that dictate why we need to change our approach towards recruitment

Owen Lee discusses where discrimination can occur during the recruitment process and examines unconscious bias and what you can do to avoid it.

Terms and Conditions for Events and Training

Employment Law Update Meetings
Our breakfast meetings are free to attend for local businesses. Our only condition is that if you book a place, you attend the meeting. If a place is booked at one of these meetings and the delegate fails to attend without giving at least 24 hours’ notice that he or she will not be attending, we reserve the right to charge £15 +VAT per delegate.

Seminars
Our charges are set out in the registration of this event, and are payable via a PayPal payment or an alternative payment (direct transfer/invoice). If you choose to pay via an alternative payment, full payment must be received at least 14 days prior to the event to secure your place. Failure to comply to these terms may result in your place being cancelled.

Mental Health and Paid for Training
Delegates are expected to attend the full sessions, fully partake in the training and completing any relevant assessment. Our charges are set out in the registration for these training sessions, and are payable via a PayPal payment or an alternative payment (direct transfer/invoice). If you choose to pay via an alternative payment, full payment must be received at least 14 days prior to the event to secure your place. Failure to comply to these terms may result in your place being cancelled.

Funded Training
Delegates are expected to attend all course sessions, fully partake in the training and complete all assignments with the time frames set out on the course. Failure to comply without reasonable cause may result in the delegate's company being charged the full cost of the training course plus any associated awarding body registration fees.

Purchases made from REED.co.uk:
Under this policy, you may cancel your purchase of the course within the period of 14 calendar days from the date on which the contract of purchase is concluded. This is called a "Cancellation Period". Note that if you redeem your voucher during the Cancellation Period, you expressly request us to begin providing the course materials and you acknowledge that you lose your right to cancel the purchase of the course and get any refund for it.
In case you decide to cancel your purchase of a course, it can be done in the following way:

By cancelling in writing via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by post to HR Champions Ltd, 43 Brunswick Road Gloucester GL1 1JS

If you cancel the purchase of a course within 14 calendar days as mentioned above, we will refund you for all payments made as a part of your purchase within 14 calendar days from the day we accept that you are entitled to a refund.

Marketing Consent
Unless you write/phone/or email us to opt out, you agree to photography and video recordings of the event/course to be taken to be used for our own promotional purposes.

1.    COPYRIGHT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS – HR Champions Ltd retain all Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights of all documents published by HR Champions Ltd either physically or online or transmitted by e-mail. Downloaded documents, whether paid for, provided free of charge or included as part of package or service are for the downloader’s express use.  You are not permitted to sell, loan, lease, or transfer the documents to any other party except when using the document for the purpose for which is was written and/or when dealing with your own employees and prospective employees. You are not permitted to publish in whole or in part, any HR Champions Intellectual Property on the Internet, or in any physical or electronic document which is generally available to the public.

2.    DOCUMENT USE – Downloadable documents are standard and may require personalisation and in some cases deletions and additions to make them relevant to the situation to which they are being applied. We strongly recommend that they are used in conjunction with advice from a consultant at HR Champions Ltd. Employment Law is prone to change, and whilst we will endeavour to maintain the currency of all documents, we may temporarily make unavailable any documents that have become outdated. Once purchased, you may make a copy of any documents for your own future use. Documents remain available for download for five days. You will need to purchase the document again after this time if you have not made a copy. We recommend that you check the website regularly to ensure the documents are the latest version before re-use.

3.    DISCLAIMER AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY – Documents are designed to assist in managing HR issues and situations but do not constitute advice in their own right. HR Champions do not accept any liability for the outcome of any situations where downloaded documents are used without advice being sought from HR Champions Ltd and properly followed. Documents are editable and therefore HR Champions will not bear any responsibility for any alterations or amendments made to the documents after download.

4.    REFUNDS – Owing to the nature of the documents; the ease with which the content of a watermarked version could be copied and the fact that they are immediately useable after download, we do not offer any refunds. Please rely on the description of each document prior to downloading. If you are in any doubt that you have selected the correct document, please contact us by telephone or e-mail for assistance.

5.   CONTACT INFORMATION - HR Champions from time to time may send you emails of special offers or events.

As a provider of Leadership and Management training, discussion and debate around the qualities of great leaders is, as you might imagine, a regular occurrence for us. Leadership is a huge subject, with an almost limitless supply of articles, blogs and discussions available on the Internet and in industry magazines. It’s rightly the foundation of nearly all of the training we promote.

When we ask for examples of great leaders during training programmes, common responses include the likes of Winston Churchill, Richard Branson and Nelson Mandela. There are often parallels drawn between the worlds of business and sport with Alex Ferguson and Martin Johnson often cited for their distinctive leadership styles.

When it comes to really successful and growth businesses however, there is an aspect to leadership that is often overlooked; self-leadership.

Enabling self-leadership in itself takes great leadership to achieve, but businesses and organisations that encourage and facilitate their employees to be self-leaders can reap the benefits of staff who:

• Can make decisions
• Understand what their responsibilities are and recognise their accountability
• Are creative in problem solving and persist in the face of adversity
• Set their own objectives and achieve them

The key to self-leadership is being able to recognise where you are for any particular task or competency. Consider four main stages:

• Unconscious Incompetence – you’re unaware of a task and, understandably you don’t know how to accomplish it
• Conscious Incompetence – you recognise there’s a task to be done but you don’t know how to accomplish it
• Conscious Competence – you recognise the task and with some effort and concentration you can accomplish it
• Unconscious Competence – accomplishing the task is a breeze, you could do it one handed

It’s normal to be at different stages of competence for different tasks and being able to recognise when you need help is an appreciation of which stage you are at rather than a sign of failure. It’s also a indicator of self-leadership. It can sometimes be difficult for an employee to ask for support, which is why self-leadership must be understood and enabled from the very top of an organisation.

Organisational culture is where the differences lie between those businesses that see the value in enabling their employees to self-lead and those that persist with a tell and do attitude. The latter are likely to constantly spiral downward due to poor morale, inefficiency and a failure to keep hold of good employees.

Promoting a culture of self-leadership is something that progressive businesses actively develop as part of a growth strategy. We have a range of tools, systems and training packages that can enable self-leadership in your organisation. Call us to discover more on  01452 331331 or by e-mailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

'Part-time’, ‘temporary’ and ‘casual’ are phrases that tend to be commonly interchanged when referring to employees; however these terms mean different things from a legal standpoint so it’s important that employers are clear about the status of anyone who does work for them, and refers to it accurately. A worker’s status can drastically affect the rights they are entitled to, particularly around unfair dismissal and redundancy.

Here’s a brief guide to employee status with a synopsis of the rights of each. This is just top line so if you are in any doubt about the status of someone carrying out work on your behalf, you should contact us for further advice. 

Full-Time Permanent Employee: An employed member of staff who works a full working week (Usually 37.5 hours but can vary) and for whom you deduct PAYE tax and National Insurance through your payroll. They are entitled to paid holidays of at least 28 days including public holidays per year and statutory sick pay, maternity/paternity/adoption/parental/shared parental leave. Full employment rights accrue after two years’ service.
 
Part-Time Permanent Employee: The same as a full-time employee, including rights accrual, but will work for a reduced, set number of hours or days per week; e.g. 16 hours per week or 3 days per week. Holiday and some other benefits will be calculated on a pro-rata basis.

Temporary Employee: A member of staff employed for a set period usually less than 6 months. If a temporary worker is taken on as a permanent member of staff without a break in employment of at least 2 weeks, the period of temporary work will be accumulated with their permanent term when calculating rights. A temporary worker who has worked for you for more than 24 months will have accrued the same rights as a permanent employee.

Temporary Employee – Agency Employed: For very short term appointments of just a few weeks or even days, temporary staff are often taken on via an agency. In this situation, workers are usually employed by and paid by the staffing agency. Current legislation means that they have equal rights as employed staff for company facilities and benefits such as a staff canteen or crèche; and rights to equal pay after 12 weeks.

Fixed Term Contract – Fixed term contracts are usually used to employ staff to manage or cover a specific project or period of maternity leave. Once that project is complete the position for which the fixed term contract was instigated no longer exists and the employee is let go. The worker is employed by you for the period of the contract. Again, workers under fixed term contracts of more than 24 months will accrue full employee rights. This means that redundancy might be the more appropriate option to terminate the contract if employment exceeds 2 years.

Casual Workers – Casual workers are likely to be employed on a zero-hours contract. They are only given work when there is work to be done and therefore only paid when they have carried out any work. There is no obligation for an employer to provide work or for the worker to accept. Event catering is a good example of an industry that would use casual workers. Casual workers don’t have any rights although once again this changes if they worked continuously without a break in service for more than 24 months. In any documentation they should be referred to as workers and NOT employees.

Contractor – A contractor would be self-employed or employed through another company and provide services to you for a fee. You would not be responsible for paying a wage or salary nor any benefits. Instead you would pay in response to being invoiced. The relationship would be governed by Business Law rather than Employment Law. However, a contractor who works exclusively for one customer for an extended period of time might be considered to be an employee by the Inland Revenue and so subject to PAYE rules. If you’ve heard anything about IR35, this is what it relates to.

In all cases you should at the very least check that your employee’s contracts describe what you believe their status to be. If there is a discrepancy, don’t act without seeking advice as you may unwittingly be in breach of contractual terms. You can contact us for further advice or assistance regarding employee statuses and relevant contracts by telephone on 01452 331331 or by e-mailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.