Motor Trade sector – Useful Empolyment Law & HR
information
RBS
Mentor can help your
motor trade business with its Employment Law compliance and HR
needs.
For your sales team, nailing down bonus and commission
arrangements is key
If you’re in the retail motor trade, you’ll rely on a
well-motivated sales force to drive business your way. You’ve got
to get the right range of incentives and rewards in place.
But too often, when things go wrong, you can find yourself
involved in time-consuming, ill-tempered and costly disputes about
bonus and commission payments. Some contractual wording might leave
you with too little room for manoeuvre to vary commission schemes
when circumstances change, but deciding things on a handshake with
no written proof may leave you open to claims for breach of a
“custom and practice” contract.
You should:
- Ensure all bonus and commission arrangements are agreed and
recorded in writing
- Take care that employment contracts give your business the
necessary discretion to vary bonus and commission schemes
- Avoid regular, but informal, arrangements that might give rise
to “custom and practice” claims
RBS
Mentor can provide:
- Appropriate terms and conditions of employment and contract
documentation
- An Employee Handbook containing procedures appropriate to your
business
- 24/7 telephone advice and support on matters such as bonus and
commission arrangements.
Where performance is all-important, you need to be able
to take steps to improve poor staff performance
You’re likely to use sales targets to measure the performance of
your staff. Performance targets might also apply to operational
staff, perhaps using things such as work tasks completed, call
answering rates and customer satisfaction feedback to measure work
performance.
But how do you tackle substandard or poor performance? You could
do this through your pay policy – so that your best performers
would get an upgrade while your poor performers would not. You
could also tackle poor performance through performance management
measures aligned to your disciplinary procedure, so that persistent
poor performance would result eventually in dismissal. But you also
need to tread carefully. Poor performance might result from an
employee’s disability, for example, or perhaps an employee who has
just returned from maternity leave needs to find time to get back
to her optimum performance level. Failing to understand the legal
risks can land you in an employment tribunal with a discrimination
claim, so it’s best to get expert help and guidance before taking
action.
You should:
- Consider appropriate performance measures to support your
business objectives
- Ensure you make use of performance management tools to drive
improved performance
- Always take advice before taking disciplinary action against
employees for poor work performance.
RBS
Mentor can provide:
- Full guidance about performance management and appraisal
procedures on MentorLive
- E-learning modules on performance management, including
handling difficult conversations
- 24/7 telephone advice to support you though performance
management and disciplinary procedures.
Maintaining driving licences and technical competence
are essential, so it’s best to be clear about what’s expected of
employees.
In driving and technical work, it will be necessary for
employees to maintain a clean driving licence, and to keep up with
training on technical developments. Where you have these
expectations, it’s always best to set them out clearly in the
employee’s contract of employment. If you don’t, it may be
difficult to prove later what was agreed, and what might be
reasonable grounds for terminating the employment.
You should:
- Have a clear policy on driving licence requirements
- Check driving licence and technical qualification documents on
a regular basis and keep records
- Ensure all training, professional competence and qualification
requirements are set out in the employee’s contract of
employment.
RBS
Mentor can provide:
- Appropriate terms and conditions of employment and contract
documentation
- An Employee Handbook containing procedures appropriate to your
business
- 24/7 telephone advice and support.