Cost of living crisis leads to rise in litigation

Bhayani Law, a Sheffield-based employment and HR law firm, highlights the importance of planning ahead to avoid litigation brought about by the challenges both businesses and their employees are facing during the current cost of living crisis.

staff unrest and damaging morale. Thinking ahead and obtaining advice early means Bhayani Law can help them explore other options, such as temporary contract changes to ride out a difficult period without losing staff or making risky dismissal decisions.

The team are also seeing a rise in discrimination claims, often due to employers seeing equality and diversity training as a luxury rather than a necessity. The similar rise in unfair dismissal claims for misconduct, absences and performance management stems from a lack of HR support. “Having in-house or external HR support, unless you are really confident in your own knowledge, is key,” explains Director and Head of Employment Law Lindsey Gaimster. “Employment law is not something you can opt in and out of, and the cost of getting it wrong usually far outweighs any investment in advice or support.”

Bhayani Law advises employers of the risks associated with individual dismissals and supports them during the process. They also help employers explore alternatives such as upskilling, training, or a settlement agreement. Lindsey adds: “Workforce planning can be hard for employers, particularly when they’re in the midst of a crisis, but if you’re letting your workforce go unnecessarily it’s only going to cause more problems in the long term, especially with the current difficulties in recruiting good candidates, so it’s essential to look ahead in order to protect your business.”

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For this month’s local business pitch, BuBul’s managing director Nigel Greenwood tells us their state-of-the arts software package which provides costeffective business advice for SMEs and their advisers.

Tell us about your business – sell yourselves!

I’m Nigel Greenwood, the founder of BuBul. After years of mapping and improving customer journeys for large corporates, I got fed up with how slow they were to change despite the great results we saw when they changed, so I set up Simply Customer in 2013 to help SMEs improve their customer journeys. When I worked with SMEs, I used journey mapping to increase leads, conversion, retention and profits for every customer I had.

Where did the inspiration to set up Bubul come from?

In 2015, I realised that many SMEs were too small to be able to afford my services, so I looked at how I could help them. When I saw that three out of four micro businesses don’t get any advice and fail as a result, I wanted to know why.

Once I knew that it was because they don’t qualify for governmentfunded schemes and can’t afford a business adviser, I decided to build something that they could afford that would act like a business adviser for them.

It took six years to develop with may setbacks on the way, but we launched BuBul in March 2021 – the world’s first software that can work out what advice a micro business owner needs and provide advice.

A key part of what your offer is ease and accessibility. How do you ensure that the software is userfriendly?

We believe strongly in getting and using customer feedback, so we’re constantly asking what we can do better and what else we can do. Before we launched we had over 40 prototypes and for each one I asked micro business owners to test it and give me their feedback. It was painful at times to see what we were getting wrong, but it’s become a way of life for us and the feedback has been pure gold in helping us continually improve.

How can people get involved?

Someone starting or running their own micro business can get BuBul at www.bubulexpert.com. We also have a free version for not for profit organisations who help people setting up their own business and they can get it at www.bubulexpert. com/social-enterprise-charity. We also offer white labelled versions for accountants as BuBul is a great tool to help them act as a business adviser to their micro clients and they can get a free trial at www. bubulexpert.com/accountants