Cost of Living Crisis: What Should I do Next?
The cost-of-living crisis is affecting us all, however, employers need to take action to help employees who may be struggling. Every employer has a legal duty to look out for the health and safety of its employees, and if employees make it known that they are struggling because of this employer need to take the next step.
Increasing Salaries
Many larger employers have made the news recently by announcing that they will be increasing salaries, paying one-off bonuses, or making home energy cost contributions. An example of this, Barclays, is rewarding 35,000 of its staff a pay rise from 1st August. However, it is understood that this is not feasible for all businesses.
Legally, there is no obligation on employers to raise employees’ salaries in response to the cost-of-living crisis. Employers should look at non-financial ways of helping staff.
Communication
It’s important for employers to recognise that the crisis will affect different employees in different ways. A good first step would be to ensure that there is good communication between you and the employees so that they are encouraged to voice their concerns and issues. Only after listening to employees can an employer understand what solutions the right ones are.
Home or Hybrid working
Some employers are repositioning home or hybrid working flexibility as a solution to the cost-of-living crisis because of the saving on commuting costs rather than a more traditional work-life balance solution. It’s important that an employee’s contract is updated or varied to reflect their true current working arrangements.
Bright Contracts software has a hybrid working policy in the “Terms and Conditions” section of the handbook which is completely editable to your business’ needs.
