New employment regulations came into force in the UK in October 2004 in the form of the Employment Act 2002. This article explains the impact of these new rules on your business. It also examines how, as an employer, you can turn the new employment legislation to the advantage of your business.

In order to understand how to use the new employment regulations to your advantage, we first need to look at how the new laws differ from the old employment legislation.

In the old days, an employee might be dismissed without an appeal and the first sign of trouble for the employer wouldn’t come until the employee put in a claim for unfair dismissal.

Or an employee might have been unhappy and so decided to resign. Sometime afterwards, you as the employer could suddenly find the employee putting in a claim for constructive dismissal.

For the employer, written procedures provided a good defence but employment tribunals still made their own decisions and defending your business could cost a lot of time and money.

With all this in mind, the Government decided to do something to reduce the number of employment tribunal claims. In doing so, they ended up introducing thirteen new ways that an employee can claim against an employer at an employment tribunal!

All these new ways of claiming at an employment tribunal are based on documentation. For example, the tribunal will look at whether certain letters were written and why, or they will ask for proof of whether a meeting was held at a sensible time and place.

The new employment laws mean that if the paperwork is not right, then the employment tribunal can class the employer as guilty - without the need for a hearing!

In exchange for this, the new legislation gives employers new ways of protecting themselves against tribunal proceedings. To understand how you can protect your business, we need to take a look at the new employment regulations in more detail.

The new employment regulations state that employees can no longer claim constructive dismissal unless they can show that they have tried, and failed, to resolve the problem with their employer.

Employees can no longer claim against their employer for unfair dismissal unless they can show that they have exhausted every appeal procedure offered by their employers and still failed to resolve their differences.

However, if an employer does not have a written dispute resolution procedure then the employee can go straight to an employment tribunal and obtain an automatic award!

On that basis, it should be obvious that all employers need to issue a dispute resolution procedure to all their employees in order to avoid the risk of automatically losing at an employment tribunal.

The good news is that a dispute resolution procedure needn’t be that difficult to implement.

The most basic dispute resolution procedure is simply a structure by which an employee can register a complaint against you. This need be nothing more than a statement from you, the employer, saying “If you have a grievance or feel you have been wrongly disciplined, then put any appeal or grievance in writing to me.”

However, what if it was you who had carried out the disciplinary in the first place - and, let’s face it, in a small company this is quite likely to be the case. Would an employment tribunal consider this to be fair?

Possibly not. But all that the law actually says is that the dispute resolution procedure should be “as fair as possible”.

So, as an employer, can you make better use of the employment legislation than this? Is there an easy way to ensure that you have a dispute resolution procedure and that it will be considered fair by an employment tribunal?

The answer, fortunately, is yes. All you need to do is to arrange for an outside person or organisation to be the point of contact to whom grievances can be directed. Then just state this in your dispute resolution procedure.

Once you have done that, you are almost there. All that remains is to make sure you use all the right bits of paperwork that are required by the new employment legislation whenever you are dealing with a disciplinary matter.

This includes ensuring that any disciplinary meetings are notified to your employees in writing and that you give them at least 48 hours notice of the meeting. You also have to make sure you explain the reason for calling the disciplinary meeting and give the employee copies of any documentation that will be discussed during the meeting.

One of the easiest ways to achieve all this is to use a good quality online personnel system. Such a system will allow you to generate employment contracts for your staff online. It will include in these contracts all the details of your disciplinary procedure, along with details of a third party organisation to whom employees should address any grievances.

In the event that you need to discipline an employee, a fully-featured online personnel system will allow you to generate all the necessary letters and documents automatically, thus ensuring your business complies with the new employment legislation.

The costs of such a system are surprisingly low, especially when you compare them against the costs of having a full-time personnel department within your own organisation - something which is usually prohibitively expensive for most small businesses.

The Employee Contracts website at www.employee-contracts.co.uk gives more information on how online personnel systems work and can help you find a professional employment law consultant to offer advice on protecting your business with one of these systems.

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David Miles is the editor of the Employee Contracts website which provides information on HR and personnel issues such as: contracts of employment, disciplinary procedures, and staff dispute resolution.

Copyright 2005 David Miles. You are welcome to reproduce this article on your website, so long as it is published “as is” (unedited) and with the author’s bio paragraph (resource box) and copyright information included. In addition, all links to external websites must be left in place.

Licensing is a key business strategy. It’s a way to maximize the earnings from inventions and creative works, which are called intellectual property or “IP.”.

What is licensing?

Licensing is when you grant some rights to intellectucal property “IP” that you own. It is really a partnership of mutual cooperation between the licensor, who owns the IP, and the licensee, who is given the right to use it for certain purposes.

Question: What are royalties?

Royalties are a way of calculating compensation for use of intellectual property. The licensee is granted the right to use it for a royalty. Royalties are usually based on a percentage of the revenues that are generated. For instance, if I license my course to a company and say, “For every subsequent use of this course, I get 5% of the revenue,” that’s the royalty 5% of the revenue would be the royalty/payment that I would receive.

Question: Are there rules of thumb for royalty amounts?

Figuring out what royalty to ask for is always a challenge. As sort of a really rough rule of thumb, the allocation of the revenue generated can be 25% for the licensor and 75% for the licensee. This is because the licensee is usually doing all the sales and marketing related to generating revenue. It varies greatly from industry to industry.

Question: What are some examples of the types of works that can be licensed?

Many types of IP can be licensed. For example, copyright-protected works, trademarks, and patented inventions can be licensed. Materials and know-how may be licensed and generate additional income. Other examples include images, photographs, music, a recording - on any kind of media.

It’s very difficult to license something that has not been reduced to writing or some kind of tangible form. Just trying to license “know-how,” for instance, is very difficult. Someone could have a lot of expertise, but unless they turn it into something concrete or tangible, it’s difficult to license it.

Question: What are the pitfalls of licensing?

A classic pitfall is that the licensee does not pay royalties. The licensor gives rights to a licensee and the licensee doesn’t do anything with them. So the licensor’s IP rights are tied up in the license agreement, but the licensor isn’t getting any money for the IP. I recommend that a licensee be required to pay at least a “minimum” royalty or forfeit the license. That way, the licensor is guaranteed a certain level of revenue. That’s also motivating for licensees because they’re going to have to pay that money in order to keep the license, so they’re going to focus on using your IP.

Another pitfall is granting an exclusive license, or giving away way too many rights. The scope of the license grant is extremely important. For example, one situation that I’m familiar with involved a patent for a chemical process. It was licensed to a very large pharmaceutical company. But in that license, we were very careful to limit it to medical applications. We turned around two years later and licensed that same patent to a paint company. Had we granted all the rights in the first license, we wouldn’t have been able to do the second licensing agreement, which was a very different market and a very different application.

Question: What if I want to use someone else’s work?

Using someone else’s work is sometimes called “licensing in.” That’s a very good business strategy as well. Why recreate the wheel if you can use materials that are out there or content that’s already been created? Usually, what I suggest is that you approach the owner of the IP and say, “I’d like permission to use some of your materials,” and you negotiate an agreement.

It’s OK to use other people’s works (without payment) if the work is in the public domain or if the use is considered to be within the “fair use doctrine.” (See enews archives for further discussion).

Question: What if someone copies my work?

Registering copyrights is an important step. If an infringement occurs after the copyright is registered, you can recover statutory damages per infringement and attorney fees. If an infringement occurs prior to registration, you can only recover actual damages, which are extremely difficult to prove.

Question: What is a territory?

Licensors try to specify territories for authorized use. Say, for instance, you have a way to fix cars and you were going to deliver a training program and it required on-site training to show people how to do this particular type of repair - fix the paint or fix the dents. That’s a service that would probably be delivered in person, so it makes sense to carve that up geographically.

But, if you market on the Internet, it’s really hard to specify a geographic territory. For example, if you’re developing an e-learning kind of program and it is going to be marketed over the Internet, then it’s very difficult to restrict geographies, just because you could have potential customers coming from anywhere in the world.

In conclusion, these are just a few of the frequently asked questions about licensing. Licensing is a great way to generate revenue from IP. Is licensing a strategy that you want to explore for your business?

Jean Sifleet is a practical and experienced business attorney whose career spans many years in large multi-national corporations and includes three successful entrepreneurial ventures. Jean has extensive experience in dealing with intellectual property matters in the large and small companies and as a small business owner. She has authored numerous books and publications on avoiding legal pitfalls in doing business. This article is excerpted from her new book, Advantage IP - Profit from Your Great Ideas (Infinity 2005). For more information, Jean’s website is http://www.smartfast.com.

Just what is Social Security? Social Security is an agency directed to provide benefits that would act as a safety net for all citizens covered by it. Social Security is not only concerned with retirement benefits for its members alone but also covers those who are disabled, dependent for support upon members of Social Security, widow and widower, a child of a member or a beneficiary of a member who died but who is entitled to receive a benefit. However, the benefits to be given depend on whether you satisfy all the requirements set by the Social Security.

The Social Security operates in this manner: would-be members are required to work and to pay their Social Security contributions. And when they retire the Social Security provide them with their retirement benefits. Likewise, in cases wherein members became disabled they are also entitled to receive disability benefits. Not only that, their spouse and their children are also to receive monthly benefits.

All of you must be wondering just how much you are to pay in order to receive all the aforementioned benefits. There is a standard set by the Social Security for which members are to follow. For members who are employed, 6.2% of your wages is with held; your employer is also to share 6.2% matching contributions. Your employer is tasked of depositing the withholding for your social security benefits. And also there is an additional 1.45% withheld from your wages and also a 1.45% matching contribution from your employer. The additional deductions from your wages are intended to cover your Medicare Benefits. The total deduction of Social Security from your wages is 7.65%.

The deduction is different for self-employed individuals. Self-employed members are asked to pay 15.3% contributions out from their taxable income. The 15.3% contribution covers both the Medicare as well as other Social Security Benefits. The 15.3% is required up to the first $87,900 of income and a 2.9% is required for earnings above $87,900. If we are to analyze the scenario we can plainly see that members who are self-employed tend to pay a much higher contributions compared to those employed members. The reason for this is that self-employed members can deduct half of their federal self-employment taxes from their total income when they are to pay their federal income tax.

For question regarding your contributions, Social Security has a hotline which you may try to contact or you may visit Social Security Offices in your area.

For suggestions and comments kindly visit
Los Angeles Social Security Disability Attorney

About the Author

Jinky C. Mesias is a graduate of Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Business Administration Major in Business Management. She is at present an Associate Manager of a Life Insurance Corporation and a freelance writer.