The UK is suffering a massive skills and labour shortage. Whilst we hear a lot about the NHS, any manager in a technology-centric business will tell a similar story – we simply have too few engineers and scientists. Employing overseas workers can help. This article discusses how you apply for a visa sponsorship licence and go on to have a foreign worker apply for a visa. This article is up to date at 20th August 2020 and will be kept up to date as the UK Government explains its future visa policy.

Pay as present leading up to the notice of redundancy, and pay both notice and redundancy pay based on normal wages. The firm is liable under statute for both notice and redundancy payments. We believe it wrong to use Government payments intended to keep the firm afloat to meet the firm’s redundancy payment obligations. Here's our rationale.

Many people work for not-for-profit organisations. So, the question arises, should employment contracts be any different, or in some way be weakened or watered down in those organisations? There are several key clauses that might change. We discuss how the confidentiality and intellectual property clauses might change. And we debate the use of the contract to set the organisation look and feel.

This article proposes a practical approach to managing of work based stress. It suggests use of the HSE Management Standards to describe six forces that need to be balanced. It then elaborates this to include these forces in a feedback model to suggest a method by which managers can actually manage reduction in stress through control of stressors and increase in coping.

Performance appraisals are worthwhile. Manager and subordinate sitting down together to review performance over the past year provides huge benefit. But for many it’s a time of dread. Unless controlled, both parties will use their power to distort the performance appraisal outcomes in their favour.

In the 1980s, a fairly standard form of appraisal emerged that aimed to assess current performance, improve the individual's performance in the immediate future, set and review performance objectives and assess training and development needs. This paper considers development since then considering applicable research and theory. It concludes that despite methods allowing performance appraisal to become more complex, the themes from the 80s persist today.