NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESSES
We're now at the end of January, and however your personal New Year's Resolutions are going, here are some things that we recommend every business should do for a smoother 2010. We see the same legal problems arise from time and time again, which we believe could be resolved if local businesses took some basic precautions.
'Be prepared’ is the best legal advice. Know your position and anticipate problems. It is much cheaper to have good contracts prepared and to take advice before problems arise. Waiting for litigation to occur simply leads to much larger legal bills. Here are our suggestions for legal New Year’s Resolutions for 2010.
- Ensure that all employees have up to date employment contracts and ideally a staff handbook.
- Don’t risk the possibility of a potentially expensive and time-consuming application to the Employment Tribunal.
- If you run a company or partnership, make sure that you have a written shareholders’ agreement or partnership agreement. You may think that you will get on with your colleagues forever, but in practice people do fall out, fall ill or even die. Covering yourself and your family with proper documentation in advance makes sense and removes some of the risks.
- Everyone should have a will – especially business owners. Getting a will written by a solicitor is easy and can cost as little as £150 – a small price to pay for peace of mind and the possibility of minimising tax.
- Ensure that you have written terms and conditions of sale and purchase and that these are sent out for all enquiries and orders. This simple step improves your legal position enormously if a problem occurs subsequently such as defective goods, late delivery or the customer going out of business.
- Make sure that you have a tight credit control policy, that everyone knows about it and that it is used. In the current economic climate, good credit control can mean the difference between a business thriving and going under.
- Have a legal health check or audit. Update your written contract, look at areas where you are legally exposed, from employment law to intellectual property and health and safety.
- Put in place an email/internet policy. Staff wasting time on the internet at work costs British business millions of pounds. A simple and enforceable policy not only should improve productivity by cutting staff time wasted on unnecessary personal internet use but you may also find you are unable to discipline staff if you find them acting inappropriately unless you have good policies in place setting out your rules very clearly.
- Look at how you handle disputes in your own organisation. Do you have a complaint policy and is it up-to-date? Do members of staff know where and when to go to get legal advice? How is something that may become a major legal dispute notified to senior management in your business?
- Consider whether some basic legal training for all staff would help. It is no use the boss being good at legal matters if front line staff dealing with customers breach legal provisions.
- Review use of yourlawyers, if you have them. Are they cost effective? Do they respond quickly? Do they give clear and practical legal advice? Why not check out your own lawyers on the internet – the web says so much about a business.
For legal advice on any commercial matter, contact Nigel Mills or Alan Jenner in the Commercial Team at Salisbury law firm Bonallack & Bishop on 01722 422300.
