What Employers & HR should learn from Bates v The Post Office

The Employment Law & HR Podcast

In this episode 221 of the podcast I bring you my thoughts and reflections on the case of Bates v The Post Office and whilst not directly related to employment law there are lots of lessons that all employers and HR can take from the events that took place.

In this episode of the podcast we cover:

• Why employers and HR need to take internal investigations seriously.
• The key things that investigators get wrong in disciplinary and grievance investigations.
• The civil test of ‘balance of probabilities’ and what this means.
• The importance of a common sense approach to issues that arise.
• Why communication is important at all levels of the organisation.
• Why large organisations need to have in place a means of obtaining feedback from the ground level through to Board level.
• How setting up employee forums, committees and/or employee representatives is a good way to establish if issues are systemic.
• Why the frequent use of settlement agreements can be a sign of an internal issue.
• That the usage and number of settlement agreements should be reviewed at Board level.
• How culture and leadership plays a key role in both avoiding and creating systemic and serious issues arising.
• The importance of independent and external review of decisions and disputes.
• A reminder that at the end of every decision is a human being whose life will be impacted.

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