Christmas is here and we want to ensure that it’s bringing good cheer to you, your business and all your employees. With that in mind, we’ve compiled some tips inspired by our favourite Christmas songs to help you through the festive season.
1. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
…so it’s important to make sure your Christmas advertising and sales aren’t misleading! When you’re selling goods at this time of year, make sure you can back up your claims about delivery costs and timescales, especially if you are telling consumers they will receive their items before Christmas. You also shouldn’t use phrases like ‘Free UK Delivery’ if you don’t deliver everywhere in the UK (including remote places) and/or if a customer has to spend a minimum amount to receive free delivery.
The usual rules around avoiding misleading advertising, and making terms and conditions clear to consumers, apply to your Christmas sales. You can find more guidance here and template terms and conditions of sale here.
2. All I want for Christmas is… prompt payment of my invoices!
Before entering into an agreement with a client or customer and agreeing payment terms with them, there are various steps that you can take to avoid problems with non-payment later on. For example, you can check their financial health and payment practices, and establish good systems for collecting payments.
You can use our Q&A guidance to maximise the chances of your invoices being paid promptly. Our Debt collection toolkit contains chasing letters to help you recover late payments without going to court.
3. Oh the weather outside is frightful…
Staff don’t have a legal right to take time off work when the weather is bad. However, their journey into work might become more difficult than usual or it might be unsuitable to work in the office. In such circumstances you may need to be adaptable, perhaps by operating a flexible working policy during a period of bad weather, allowing staff to work from home or adjusting staff start and finishing times to account for a more difficult journey.
You should also consider whether disability or pregnancy might affect any staff member’s ability to get into the office. If it does, you might consider letting them work from home, providing a taxi to pick them up or allowing them to change their working hours so they avoid rush hour commutes. You are required by law to make reasonable adjustments for disabled staff members and failure to do so can be discrimination.
4. Driving home for Christmas… Who gets time off over the holidays?
It’s common for leave requests to increase around Christmas and New Year. There are no legal rules governing how you should decide which staff members should be given priority to have Christmas off, although you may wish to operate a first-come, first-served policy, or a rotation system.
You may decide to shut the office for Christmas and require all staff to take leave during this time, or specify that nobody can take leave during a particular period. See our Staff handbook and policies for a template policy providing for you to shut the office during certain periods. You can find more guidance on preventing or requiring staff to take annual leave in our Q&A.
5. For some staff, it may be a Blue Christmas this year
Make sure you are considerate of staff who might be dealing with mental health issues or bereavement over the Christmas period. It’s a good idea to regularly catch up with your staff members to discuss their workload and stress levels. This can help you to learn about any mental health issues they may be facing, and to check that their workload is manageable. Our Q&A has more guidance on protecting workers’ mental health. You can also find guidance about bereavement leave here.
6. It was Christmas Eve babe… Keeping staff away from the drunk tank!
Accidents, arguments, harassment and other risks to staff health and safety are more likely if staff are drinking excessively. If you throw a staff party, you can discourage excessive drinking by regulating alcohol consumption (eg by using tokens for drinks, ensuring enough food is provided and closing the bar at a certain time). You could also consider appointing certain members of your management team to monitor staff drinking and ensure that staff leave the venue safely.
If you’re hosting your social at a venue, make sure you’ve thought about how staff will get home afterwards and remind them to plan this in advance, ensuring they don’t drink and drive. Ideally, choose a venue with suitable transport links; alternatively you could organise taxis or a minibus, or circulate taxi company numbers prior to the event.
7. You better watch out… for competitors copying your branding and IP
Don’t forget that simply registering your trade mark or design isn’t enough to protect it; you need to monitor your competitors regularly. General searches via major search engines and social media can be a useful tool to discover businesses that are trading under similar names to you or copying your products. You should also check for registrations of domain names that are similar to your business’s name.
Consider using automated tools to provide you with alerts when relevant content is published online. For example, Google Alerts is a free tool that provides email notifications when a phrase of your choice is published on the internet. For documents and guidance to help you register and protect your IP, use our Protecting IP and confidential toolkit.
The content in this article is up to date at the date of publishing. The information provided is intended only for information purposes, and is not for the purpose of providing legal advice. Sparqa Legal’s Terms of Use apply.
Marion joined Sparqa Legal as a Senior Legal Editor in 2018. She previously worked as a corporate/commercial lawyer for five years at one of New Zealand’s leading law firms, Kensington Swan (now Dentons Kensington Swan), and as an in-house legal consultant for a UK tech company. Marion regularly writes for Sparqa’s blog, contributing across its commercial, IP and health and safety law content.