Dinah Patmore HR/Employment law specialist and trainer

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Dinah Patmore HR/Employment law specialist and trainer

Chartered member of the CIPD. Qualified mediator. Based in Chelmsford, Essex.

🌟 HR and employment law specialist and trainer working with businesses to help navigate the world of being an employer and managing people. 🌟

20+ years' experience.

14/07/2025

Do your employees know which of these could be sexual harassment?

Employers have a duty to prevent sexual harassment (including by 3rd parties like clients and suppliers).

So, if you're not sure if your employees know, you are running quite a risk.

Contact me to find out about my affordable training sessions on understanding and preventing sexual harassment at work.

03/06/2025

I talked about reasonable responses in my last post, and another key lesson I’ve learned during my years of dealing with employee relations cases is—never pre-judge an outcome!

Now, I know that sounds obvious — but I also know from experience that it’s easy to assume you already know how a case will play out, especially when the investigation seems straightforward. But if you’ve spent enough time in HR or management, you’ll know that even when the facts line up, the disciplinary meeting can bring unexpected twists.

This type of case is more common than you might expect:

An employee is accused of serious misconduct, and the investigation confirms they did it. Dismissal seems inevitable. Then, in the disciplinary meeting, mitigating circumstances emerge—unclear instructions, a precedent that made their actions seem acceptable. Suddenly, the case is turned on its head and although a thorough investigation certainly helps prevent this from happening, I’ve still seen it happen.

That’s why employers should try to ensure that investigations and disciplinaries are undertaken by someone unbiased. Their purpose should not be to confirm what the employer already believes, but to gain insight that might change their approach or prevent something unwanted from happening in the future.

Anyone about to embark on a disciplinary meeting—expect the unexpected! Keep an open mind, ask the right questions, and be ready for the twist you didn’t see coming!

02/06/2025

A client sat across from me, clear about what action they wanted to take.

An employee had made a remark—one that another colleague had complained about. Technically, it amounted to discrimination (harassment), which is something that could be classified as gross misconduct.

For the employer, the decision seemed obvious. The employee should be dismissed. A clear message needed to be sent.

But as the conversation unfolded, it became clear—the frustration wasn’t just about the remark. This employee had been underperforming for some time, and the employer saw this as an opportunity to finally let them go.

This was someone with long service, no previous misconduct issues, and crucially—someone who had never received any training on discrimination. The remark was inappropriate, yes. But was dismissal the only reasonable response?

I always strive to help clients achieve their desired outcomes—but I also strive to help them make decisions that are legally sound, ethically fair, and defensible.

📌 A tribunal wouldn’t just look at the incident—it would assess whether dismissal was truly a reasonable response.

The band of reasonable responses is a test of whether an employer’s decision would be considered fair by other reasonable employers in the same situation. Dismissal was within that band, but would a warning, further training, or another approach also be reasonable?

Tribunals weigh:
✔ Severity – Was the misconduct serious enough to warrant dismissal?
✔ Consistency – Have other employees been treated the same way in similar cases?
✔ Fair process – Was the investigation thorough, and did the employee get a chance to respond?
✔ Proportionality – Did the employer consider less severe actions before deciding on termination?

A rushed dismissal can result in a successful unfair dismissal claim, especially if underlying performance concerns were a motivating factor as well as the misconduct itself.

As an employer, the decisions you make today don’t just impact this one case—they set the precedent for how your workplace handles future concerns. A fair, consistent approach strengthens trust and protects your business.

Of course, every client has varying appetite for risk, and ultimately, decisions lie with them. And after speaking about the fact that there would be an appeal process, this particular client decided to progress with dismissal (although relying on the appeal process to ‘fix’ a flawed initial decision can be a gamble for a number of reasons which I won't go into here!).

❗ Before making a quick dismissal decision, ask yourself: Would this stand up to scrutiny if challenged?

📞 Or speak to someone with experience, like me! 😊

22/05/2025

Following on from earlier posts this week about the benefits for employers of having a people strategy, here is a simple people strategy blueprint...

A strong people strategy ensures business goals are supported by the right people, practices, leadership, and culture.

Use this quick self-assessment to identify any potential gaps in your strategy:

1️⃣ Identifying the skills your business needs
✅ Have you identified the critical skills that drive performance and have a plan to bring those skills into the business?
✅ Are you planning ahead for future skill gaps to ensure long-term success?

2️⃣ Attracting the skills
✅ Is your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) clearly defined and compelling?
✅ Is your recruitment/resourcing process resulting in positive hiring/engagement decisions?

3️⃣ Retaining skills through positive employee experience
✅ Is your workplace experience designed to strengthen retention and prevent disengagement?
✅ Are people recognised and rewarded in ways that drive performance?
✅ Does your retention strategy go beyond pay—focusing on development, culture, flexibility, and anything else your people value?

4️⃣ Building a strong culture & values
✅ Is your workplace culture supporting your business goals?
✅ Are your company values embedded in decision-making, not just written in a handbook?

5️⃣ Career progression & succession planning
✅ Can people clearly see opportunities for development and growth?
✅ Are leadership pipelines strategically planned to support business continuity?

6️⃣ When people leave
✅ Are they leaving as ambassadors of the workplace you've created?

These are just a few high level aspects of people strategy to consider – with many other considerations underpinning them.

🤔 How does your people strategy measure up?
What’s your next step in strengthening it?

20/05/2025

Two businesses. Same industry. Same market. One thrives, one struggles—why?

It’s not always about the product or service. Sometimes, the biggest difference comes down to how they invest in people strategy.

💡 I’ve seen this first-hand—businesses that treat people strategy as a reactive fix, although they sometimes get lucky, mostly they struggle with avoidable turnover, disengagement, and legal headaches. But the businesses that have an intentional people plan? They build teams that drive sustainable success without leaving anything to chance.

🔴 Business A: The Reactive Approach
❌ Hiring decisions are rushed when gaps appear, leading to constant turnover and wasted time.
❌ HR policies are written purely for compliance, never designed to actually support business performance.
❌ Workplace culture is undefined, and employees feel disengaged, checking out silently before they leave.
❌ Leadership focuses only on putting out fires, never addressing why the fires keep happening.

🟢 Business B: The Intentional Approach
✅ Hiring plans are strategic, ensuring new people fit the company’s long-term vision.
✅ HR policies are built around growth and business goals, designed to empower employees, not restrict them.
✅ Workplace culture is deliberately shaped and more likely to ensure engaged, high-performing and loyal people.
✅ Leadership predicts potential challenges before they arise, eliminating inefficiencies before they cost the business money.

🌟 And here’s the truth: having an HR specialist in your camp, helping you design and implement your people plan, isn’t as costly as you may think. And if you find a good one, they will make people planning feel easy.

💸 Besides, the long-term savings—on hiring, retention, and productivity—far outweigh the cost of constantly fixing problems.

14/05/2025

No training = no defence at Employment Tribunal!

My sessions are fun and interactive both in person and online!

12/05/2025

Most businesses plan for growth. But let’s not forget that growth isn’t just about revenue—to be sustainable, it relies on people to make it happen.

Scaling a business isn’t just about a great product or service or a solid marketing strategy. It’s about people—how they are hired, retained, and motivated to drive success.

And yet, some businesses treat people strategy like:

⚠️ A reaction to problems instead of something to be deliberately designed
⚠️ An optional extra instead of a growth lever
⚠️ Something to "figure out later" instead of the foundation that makes everything else work

Later this week, I’m breaking down how two businesses take completely different approaches to people strategy—one thrives, one struggles.

Which category would your business fall into?
And more importantly, if it’s the latter, how much is it costing? 💸 💸

06/05/2025

HOW? That is the big question! ❓

There are ways... 🙌

They are all simple and some take more effort than others, but if you're missing any of these key ingredients, you're not likely to succeed.

01/05/2025

In case anyone missed the Home Office changes to right to work checks....

Here is a summary of the changes taken from gov.uk:

Summary of changes in this issue of the guidance
This guidance was last updated on 12 February 2025.

The most significant updates contained in this guidance relate to:

🟢 consolidating the guidance by streamlining the content within the section titled ‘Previous versions of this guidance’.

🟢 the decommissioning of biometric cards, including Biometric Residence Permits/Card (BRP/BRC) confirming that individuals who currently use a physical immigration document, such as a BRP/BRC, or legacy paper document, should take action to create a UKVI account to access their eVisa to prove their right to work in the UK.

🟢 updates to Annex A: Lists of acceptable documents for manual right to work checks to confirm that a clipped British or Irish passport is a cancelled document and therefore not acceptable proof of right to work.

🟢 Also, clarification that a short or long birth certificate is considered acceptable when presented with official evidence of name and national insurance number issued by a government agency or a previous employer.

🟢 an update to Annex D: Employment of Ukrainian nationals to confirm the opening of the Ukraine Permission Extension scheme on 4 February 2025.

🟢 the removal of the section referring to COVID-19 temporary adjusted checks.

💡 If in doubt, there is a handy checker employers can use - link below...

https://www.gov.uk/legal-right-work-uk

30/04/2025

Hello and welcome to my page!

If you're an employer and you need HR support, please read on....

I'm available to support businesses with HR strategy, HR compliance, developing HR processes, policies and documentation, people management training, training to protect the business (discrimination etc.), employee relations issues (disciplinary and grievance), workplace investigations, redundancies, TUPE, general HR /employment law advice, settlement agreements, contract and handbook drafting, and the list goes on.....

The work I undertake is fully insured and I work with clients directly as a consultant or as an associate for other HR consultancies.

Having worked in HR consultancy for 10+ years, and as an in-house HR manager in industry for many years prior to that, I've seen numerous organisations in many different sectors adopt varied approaches to managing their ‘human resources’.

Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a one size fits all solution when it comes to humans (or organisations for that matter, which are just as individual). But what experience has given me, is a wide ranging viewpoint of successes and failures for organisations and their people.

I’ve helped 100’s of businesses improve employee experience/organisational performance and simplify and solve complex people problems.

Contact me for a free consultation. All employment questions welcome!

Address

Chelmsford
CM26TZ

Website

http://www.linkedin.com/in/dinah-patmore-mcipd

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