Do you wait for the boiler to breakdown completely in the dead of winter before you call a plumber or wait until your arm is falling off before you go to see your GP? Do you also wait until you receive a Tribunal Claim before you call a lawyer? It’s time to stop doing that.

You may think that you’re saving yourself some hassle, time, money but I promise it will be cheaper and a whole lot less painful dealing with an internal HR issue at an early stage rather than getting in to a battle later.

1. The advantages of pro-actively managing HR issues include:
2. A better relationship with your staff – mutual respect;
3. Potentially less management time resolving them – you can nip them in the bud;
4. Lower sickness absence – employees who are unhappy at work often become stressed which leads to absence when they can’t face the issue at work anymore;
5. Loyal staff who know where they stand and trust in their employer to “do the right thing”;
6. Employees are less likely to involve external third parties such as ACAS, their union or a solicitor if they think that you will treat them fairly;
7. You stand a better chance of finding a mutually satisfactory solution before the relationship completely deteriorates.

It’s a sickening feeling when you discover that your employees have been consulting others and taking notes on you for months and you didn’t event suspect that there was a problem – or you did but thought it would go away. It doesn’t go away unless the issue is resolved.

Is there an issue in your business that is sounding an alarm bell in your head or giving you a feeling in your gut that it will escalate if you don’t deal with it soon? Trust your instinct. Seek some advice from a specialist to stop it leading to sleepless nights for you as well as the employee.