So that was Christmas, another year over. For many businesses this means it’s time to review the company goals and reset employee objectives.  If you are anything like me you know all the stuff about why plans are essential and that good plans have goals and objectives to give context and support to employees. BUT that doesn’t make it any easier to match the right objectives to the right employees.

Lets face it, for us small business owners, managing absence management can be time consuming and frustrating.  I've found a great booklet by ACAS that gives a really good overview of all aspects of absence management systems and I'd recommend it to anyone struggling with HR in a small business.

Whilst there is loads of advice out there about absence management it's refreshing to read something written by an organisation with nothing to sell.  Lets be clear though, this kind of reading doesn't replace professional advice but it's a great place to start.

From talking to a number of smaller businesses and their HR Advisors there is clearly uncertainty around the new agency workers regulations that came into force in October 2011.  The rules seem clear but few know how to implement them.

It's that time of year again when winter starts to bite - snow has fallen in some northern areas of the UK and even the south has seen its first bad frost.