Wendy Read, IT Resource Management (ITRM) Ltd.

Recruitment is the dreaded job for all managers, especially within specialist areas such as IT. Keeping abreast of all the latest personnel strategies and issues, along with day to day pressures at work can seem like a tall order. That’s why thousands of managers turn to recruiters. However once you have this resource how do you make the most of them?

Wendy is from a background in Human Resources. During her time with Harrods she worked within the HR /Recruitment Division, dealing with agencies and third party suppliers. Following this she moved into the IT recruitment world as a recruiter specialising in IBM Midrange and Mainframe systems and was promoted to Associate Director of a large IT Specialist Recruitment Company. Today, acknowledged and respected within the field, she heads up ITRM Ltd’s Recruitment division, and has a strong ‘business and customer focussed’ team working with her.

11.15am Coffee

11.30am Managing Monitoring - How far can Big Brother go?

Belinda Lester, Sprecher Grier Halberstam LLP

Belinda will address the whole spectrum of employee scrutiny from telephone monitoring to physically searching employees where misconduct is suspected.

	When is surveillance permitted?
	Stop and search – when is it allowed?
	How to avoid claims for infringement of human rights
	Updates on recent tribunal cases

Belinda specialises solely in employment law with wide experience of both contentious and non-contentious matters. On the non-contentious side, as well as advising on contracts of employment, staff policies and procedures and TUPE transfers, she also provides in-house training on a variety of topics useful to both manager and HR professionals. She deals with all aspects of employment litigation, including claims for unfair/wrongful dismissal, redundancy, discrimination and is an experienced advocate in the employment tribunals.

12.15 The Real Issues in Making People Redundant.

Deni Wilson, Managing Director, Typex Group plc

You think you understand the issues, you know you have to lose some staff and cut overheads but how do you go about it? There are people like ACAS who are only too willing to help but how good is their advice? Do you need to employ a solicitor? Deni will explain what actually happened to Typex when they came face to face with this very problem and how they handled it.

Deni has worked for Typex since 1978 fulfilling a number of roles such as Operations Director and Marking Director. She took over the role of Managing Director in 1993 and, for 18 months from 1999 to 2001, was seconded to IBM to run a worldwide marketing campaign. Typex Group plc specialises in selling and integrating AT&T networking, IBM hardware and Typex software.

12.45 Lunch

1.30 Discipline, Dismissal and Absenteeism

Belinda Lester, SGH

Absenteeism – One of the most difficult areas to administer is the abuse of the sick-leave system. How do you act swiftly when you suspect that this is happening, without falling foul of the disability discrimination laws?

	Strategies for confronting employees with poor attendance records
	Avoiding inadvertent disability discrimination
	Health checks – when should these be implemented?
	Disciplinary procures for the persistent

The painful, yet all too frequent issue of discipline and dismissal will also be covered in this seminar – with advice on navigating the dangerous waters of this topic

	New employment Act
	Potentially fair reasons to dismiss
	Are you acting reasonably?
	Are you sure a dismissal will not result in a tribunal claim?

2.15 The Data Protection Act Regarding Employees Working Remotely

Emma Shipp, SGH

Whether employees work in the office, at home or elsewhere the employer will be responsible for ensuring they comply with the Data Protection Act in all their work dealings. Emma will explore these obligations and focus particularly on:

	The Information Commissioner's code of practice for employers
	Monitoring employee's compliance
	Security of personal data held at work and at home
	Disclosure of personal information to employees.

Emma Shipp has been a partner at Sprecher Grier Halberstam in the Company Commercial department for 10 years. She is head of the Data Protection law group and lectures widely on all areas of data protection law.

3.00 An Overview of Testing in the Workplace.

Roy Davis, SHL Group

	The introduction of psychometric testing
	Why organisations should test and do test
	The common types of tests used in the workplace
	What candidates can do to prepare.

Roy has been with SHL for 11 years, having previously held senior sales and marketing roles in both the Construction and national press sectors.He has for the last four years specialised in the communications arena. He primarily deals with business-to-business and financial media relations, advising on corporate communications strategy, and is also heavily involved in employee communications. In his specialist communications role and as a non-psychologist he writes, comments and speaks regularly on the contribution in the objective assessment and development of people, work and organisations can make in today’s complex field of Human Resource management.

3.30 Close

followed by tea and a champagne reception kindly hosted by Sprecher Grier Halberstam

(your ideal opportunity to put questions to solicitors - for free)

Sprecher Grier Halberstam LLP are the official Legal Advisors to the CUA