OPINION: Keeping up to date

Through out my career in retailing I have been confronted by dozens of significant pieces of legislation that effected the way I did my job. These Acts have included Health and Safety at Work, the Sale of Goods, Food Safety, Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco and plenty of changes to how employees are treated.

While worked for WHSmith I was instructed by their Head Office how to implement any changes to day to day store operation or the company made changes that were ‘invisible’ to their branches. With my move to being an independent retailer I became responsible for the interpretation and implementation of the law that covers the operation of my business. Even those laws I was not aware of.

Fortunately organisations like the NFRN were there as a friend in the industry as well as trade magazines such as Retail Newsagent that have covered any changes in the law in the run up to their implementation. Sometimes this isn’t enough and I was very fortunate to have  a customer who is a leading academic expert on employment law and it interpretation. With the huge amount of change in this area of business over the past decade our regular chats were most informative and a very helpful guide as I worked out how to meet the challenges of legislation like the Equality Act.

As well as his university teaching role he belongs Indicator who publish a weekly newsletter call Tips M@il, it’s free to sign up to and provides a regular flow of useful interpretation of how legislation is being implemented. It’s written exclusively for SMEs and covers issues such as tax, personnel issues, insurance, contract/commercial law, raising finance, health & safety, directors’ liability, cost cutting, company law.

I have found the weekly newsletter both interesting and useful I hope that you do to.