In honour of the many talented athletes at the recent Games, we’ve come up with 7 sports-inspired tips to help you run your business successfully.
As part of our top tips, we’ve linked you to the relevant Q&A and documents, which will help you to avoid falling foul of regulatory authorities, maintain good customer and staff relationships, and deal with disputes or problems when they arise.
1. Before diving into a new project or partnership, make sure you have an agreement in place
You might have decided to go into business with a friend or colleague, or to collaborate with another business on a certain one-off or ongoing project. If you are considering either of these scenarios, it’s important to have a written agreement in place. Having a written agreement ensures you are all on the same page if disputes or issues arise, and can make clear how you will exit the arrangement, how profits will be split and expenses shared, how you will ensure your own intellectual property is protected, and more.
You can find out more about partnerships in our Q&A, along with a template partnership agreement, and you can find out about business collaborations in our Q&A, as well as a template business collaboration agreement.
You should also be careful about disclosing confidential business information without an NDA in place; you can find more details in our Q&A.
2. Hit your target every time when advertising and marketing
When creating and placing advertisements, it’s important to be aware of your audience and avoid causing offence or discriminating against certain groups of people. The Advertising Standards Authority has various rules about advertising in a socially responsible manner, set out in their codes of practice, and it’s important to be aware of, and follow, these rules. You must also ensure your advertising is not misleading (ie don’t hide or leave out important information, or make a deal or promotion sound better than it is). Find out more in our Q&A.
You can also use our terms and conditions template to make sure you and your customers are aware of how your business will provide goods and services, and what obligations apply to each of you.
3. It’s a balancing act… how to help remote workers stay in touch
It’s important to keep an eye on the mental health of remote workers, as they can easily become isolated. Steps to take include remembering to include them in work socials, allowing them to come into the office when suits, providing helplines for IT or equipment breakdowns, having regular catch-ups to check in, and providing good communication systems such as instant messaging, phones and email.
Use our risk assessment for remote workers to ensure you are keeping up with your health and safety obligations.
4. Keep an eye on the competition by monitoring for trade mark infringements
Even if you have registered a trade mark or other type of IP, the UK IPO will not monitor any infringements by other businesses for you; you need to do this yourself. If a business is set up with a name or branding which is similar to yours, it can create confusion for your potential customers or clients, leading to lost sales and damage to your business’s reputation. To monitor for trade mark infringements, you can conduct general searches of major search engines and social media to look for businesses trading under names which are the same as or similar to yours.
You can also check for domain names which have been registered which are similar to your business’s name. Manual searches can be very inefficient, so you should consider using automated tools to provide you with alerts when relevant content is published online. Find out more in our Q&A.
5. Don’t drop the ball when dealing with employment contracts
You’re legally required to provide every employee and casual worker with a written statement of the basic terms of their employment (eg pay, hours, holidays) on or before their first day of work. These written terms don’t have to be in the form of an employment contract, but in practice, it is best to give your employee a full written employment contract so that there is no confusion about what you have agreed. You can use our template Employment contract to cover all the legally required information.
You must ensure your employment contracts aren’t discriminatory (ie don’t give more favourable terms to certain employees based on a protected characteristic). Find out more in our Q&A.
6. Stay within the rules… make sure your privacy and cookie policies are up to date
You’re required to notify users of your website or app about what you will be doing with their personal data using a privacy policy. Additionally, if you are using cookies or similar technology on your website or app, you are required to explain (in a user-friendly way) how you use them and request the consent of users for most types of cookie use the first time they use your website or app. Don’t fall foul of the ICO – use our template Cookie policy and Privacy policy to make sure you’re covered.
7. It’s all about equality – how to avoid discrimination in the workplace
You are under a legal obligation not to discriminate against, harass or victimise staff members on the basis of their age, sex, race, disability, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, or religion or belief. The obligation also extends to how your staff treat your clients or customers, so you should ensure that your staff members know how to behave accordingly.
The best way to achieve both of these aims is to have a good equal opportunities and anti-bullying and harassment policy before you take any staff on, and to provide your staff with training on their obligations once they arrive. If you have a policy, you must abide by it. Do not promise anything in your policy that you will not or cannot deliver as this damages your case if ever a discrimination claim is brought and it can be shown that you have not followed your own procedure.
See the template Staff handbook and policies for an example of an equal opportunities policy you can use. You can choose to generate the policy either on its own or as part of a full staff handbook.
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.