Last year had its human resources (HR) and industrial relations (IR) challenges, many due to an economic climate which is going to continue playing a major role in 2012.

However, most challenges result from employers’ mistakes and foolhardy approaches, inadequate IR/labour law knowledge and skills, inadequate policies/rules and so on.

This is the time of the year when line managers and HR managers consider action plans for the new year.

This is also the time when employers show great enthusiasm, vigour and passion for executing those well-thought-out plans and not to make the same costly mistakes of the previous year.

However, management rather quickly becomes preoccupied with the hustle and bustle of trying to resolve time-consuming daily problems. Consequently, a crisis management and reactionary approach quickly forces the pro-active implementation of HR/IR plans to take a back seat.

I often write about the costly and embarrassing consequences of such a reactionary approach to HR problems.

They are not restricted to small and medium-sized companies.

Maybe HR practitioners and line managers have become too skilled in resolving employment disputes, or trying to. Too many financial and staffing resources are allocated to fighting the disputes. The priority for these practitioners should be a pro-active approach in trying to prevent the problems.

By now it should be common knowledge that the time, effort and costs associated with preventing problems/disputes are much less than resolving them afterwards.

For example, the cost of training line managers to deal effectively with discipline could be R25 000, whereas the cost of one unfair dismissal could be many times that.

In our experience, most companies do not need complicated HR/IR solutions. They need to focus on a back-to-basics approach as their problems emanate from rather elementary matters that are not in place. Examples include:

l Most employer problems emanate from dismissals which are frequently challenged at arbitration. Employers’ statutory obligation to ensure fair dismissals is common knowledge, but they repeatedly make basic procedural mistakes.

Even at so-called blue chip companies, line managers and some HR/IR practitioners have a dismal comprehension of the complexities of ensuring substantive fairness, especially concerning the principles of evidence.

Those involved with discipline should be trained on a well-structured effective-discipline course.

l Letters of appointment should regulate the contractual relationship between employers and employees and could cover the customary remuneration/benefit rights, as well as conduct and performance standards and other specific requirements such as restraints, confidentiality provisions, smoking policy and internet use.

However, too often employers have to rely on antiquated, inadequate contracts in disputes. Typical problems include contractual provisions that contradict statutory requirements (such as notice periods), questionable fairness pro- visions (such as restraints of trade) and a dismal lack of conduct or performance standards.

Letters of appointment that were drafted more than four or five years ago are probably legally unacceptable or unfair and employers should get their contracts re-evaluated by a labour law practitioner.

l The Labour Relations Act and case law reiterate the right of employees to know what their performance and conduct requirements are, as well as the importance of these being reasonable in order to ensure a fair dismissal. Too many employers are daily losing cases at arbitration because these rules and standards are not in place.

In this regard, many employers do have written financial, administrative, operational and HR/IR policies, procedures and standards.

Even in such cases, inadequacies are often identified when disputes are being defended. In many companies where these elaborate written documents do exist, they are not included in the letter of appointment which should, at least, cover performance and conduct rules and standards.

Too often these standards/rules are also antiquated as they do not, for example, comply with case law developments or even with a company’s own practices.

l Another priority for the year should include compliance with the Employment Equity Act. Employers that don’t have their EE plans and EE committees in place, notwithstanding the statutory obligation to do so, should urgently attend to this.

The effective implementation of these rather limited and basic HR/IR priorities for 2012 should go a long way towards eliminating the costly consequences of not having them in place.

l Pierre Marais is with the Labour Law Group. Contact him on 011 679 5944. Back copies of articles can be obtained from Wanda at 011 679 5944.