The incoming employer (the company the employees are going to) will have obligations under TUPE to ensure the smooth transition of staff and enabling them to integrate into the existing staff team successfully. An explanation of what TUPE is, can be found in part 1 of our series on TUPE.
These include:
Ensuring Employee Liability is received
This would include the names of staff, their employment contracts and details of any disciplinary which have taken place over the last two years. There is more detail relating to this in part 2 of this TUPE series.
Payroll Information
You will need to ensure that you obtain information relating to salaries, allowances and deductions (e.g. student loans). You will also need to get the pay date which, you can move this to match the same date of your payroll. Our HR Team can provide guidance on this process.
Consultation
You should consult with the employees moving to your organisation to notify them of things such as change of pay date, change of location etc.
If redundancies cannot be avoided you will need to follow a thorough consultation process with all the staff at risk. This could involve employees from both organisations if there is a situation where you have too many employees for a particular role.
You also need to write to all the employees when they join stating that they are now employed by your organisation and the effective date. You also need to state any changes such as change of location and reiterate that all other terms and conditions will remain the same.
It is also a good idea to plan an effective induction programme to help them settle in quickly. And don’t forget your existing staff. They might have concerns from working alongside new team members to being disgruntled if a colleague is earning more than them for the same role.
Keeping employees informed and lines of communication open is vital in ensuring the smooth running of this process.
Changes in Terms and Conditions
Employees must come across on their existing terms and conditions. If you wish to harmonise terms and conditions please contact our HR team as this can be a complex area. This concludes our series on TUPE which we hope you have found informative. It is an involved process but our HR team can help you through every step. Please contact us on 0800 953 4020 or e-mail pauline@lmcukservices.co.uk