About Us: – If you would like more details of our Professional Experience please ask.
Lesley Furber is the Lead Consultant at The HR Kiosk.
Lesley chose the name The HR Kiosk as she believes this describes the service perfectly – small, precise and friendly. Lesley is by nature, and by profession, a pragmatic problem-solver who helps small and medium sized creative businesses solve theirs.
Lesley is CIPD qualified and has spent over 30 years in Human Resources, working mostly in the UK TV Industry. Lesley has worked at TV-am, British Satellite Broadcasting, Morgan Grampian Publishers and spent 10 years at the BBC, working with Arts, Music, Entertainment (TV and Radio) and Childrens’ TV programme-making departments.
The current clients of The HR Kiosk are from the UK’s Film, TV & Animation production industry.
In 2009 Workline’s remit broadened to all UK industry sectors and its website moved to the Crunch website.
Workline was nominated as a Finalist in the Best Employment Advice Website category at the National Online Recruitment Awards 2013.
In August 2013, October Films approached Lesley Furber to ask her to appear as the ‘expert’ HR practitioner on a forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme on bad employment practices. Discussing practices such as zero-hours contracts, the agency workers regulations and low pay with an Employment Law Academic and a Dispatches Reporter. Lesley declined the offer but was very honoured to be asked! The programme aired on Monday 21st October, called ‘The Secret of your Pay Packet’.
In April 2014 The UK Ministry of Justice approached Lesley with an ‘Expertise Request’ to ask for her help on a project to change the ET3 online forms (Employers Tribunal claim process).
Testimonials (About Us) – You can also see our Testimonials on our LinkedIn page here:
“Don’t make the cardinal mistake of thinking that just because you’re freelance you don’t have ‘rights’. There are a legion of employers out there who take advantage of freelancers, in order to profit from the ‘grey area’ covering taxes, national insurance payments and holiday allowances. Keep up to date on current legislation at Freelance Advisor”
Lesley has been amazing in helping to review and update our Company Handbook to ensure we are compliant with the latest employment law. In the process she managed to retain the feel of our company and culture throughout the handbook and it has been highly praised internally.
Lesley was great to work with and extremely knowledgeable on all things HR. Employment law can be a minefield and she has put us straight on a number of things.
It’s great to know she is there if we ever need some expert advice. Justine Cobb
We are a small sized company with a growing workforce and expecting to expand this year and employ more new staff. With 2 directors very busy doing the day to day work, we needed help with our HR and to ensure that we stayed legal. We came across the HR kiosk, received a very reasonable price, set out the paperwork we would need i.e. – a contract for our employees with irregular work patterns, and a Company Handbook to detail what hours someone could work and their leave, disciplinary procedures etc.
Lesley at the HR kiosk whirled into our lives with enthusiasm and absolute professionalism, I could not believe the amount of paperwork she produced for us – and things that we did not know we needed. She worked so hard for us, and I felt safe, she gave us fantastic advice on HMRC obligations. She gave us advice on how to proceed for the future as part of the original price, she is worth her weight in gold.
The HR kiosk will be our HR representatives until we require a full time HR person. But I would recommend The HR Kiosk to anyone. Their experience and knowledge is astounding. And I am forwarding their details to my business friends. I can’t recommend them enough. Tara Schiavon.
Lesley Furber manages Workline – which offers free employment advice to those working in the UK from the Crunch website.
Darren said: Lesley has been utterly fantastic in the delivery of perfectly apt content. More, she has been exceptionally fast responding to freelanceadvisor’s audience’s questions about employment issues which we provide for free.
All round a fantastic addition to our site and we have been so pleased with Lesley’s incredibly professional approach. 100% recommended!
Lesley is fantastic. She is extremely knowledgeable, always providing sound advice on any HR questions I ask her! Further more, she is lovely to deal with. I have no hesitations in recommending Lesley.
Hi Lesley. Thanks so much again for everything and looking forward to working with you again soon xxxx
Lesley – Hi there – really sorry I haven’t been in touch – I had to focus on some day to day accounts stuff and had a new employee joining the accounts department.
So many thanks for all your hard work last week and for doing it in a short space of time.
We have discussed the work that you have done and agree that the XXXX should be on a casual contract as you suggested and that XXX should be on a permanent contract, as you also suggested.
Many thanks for all your assistance. Kind regards.
Hi Lesley, good news ref the contract, thanks. Please go ahead and make the amendments to the contract & handbook where necessary.
Thank you for capping the costs for us, it is much appreciated. Being one man down (even if he didn’t do very much) will affect our cash flow for the next couple of months, but I’m so pleased that I’m not paying someone for doing nothing!
The atmosphere here now is much improved. We’re all off to lunch in a few minutes to celebrate XXX’s birthday (belatedly) and new beginnings. I’ll raise a glass to you! Best regards
Hi Lesley. Thanks for your help with XXX’s letter. We have given it to her now. We will definitely know whether or not it is working in this timescale. Thanks
Dear Lesley
Many thanks for your time earlier on today I do appreciate your advice. Find attached the contract of the secondment which we need to renew ASAP. Grateful if you could kindly make suggestions as discussed.
Many thanks
Hi Lesley
Just keeping you in the loop. XXX has resigned. There is nothing I should advise the client of in respect of this matter is there?
Best
I can’t tell you how great it is to have you in the back ground to ping these things over too!
Angela
Hi Lesley
Thanks for your email and yes all has been resolved quietly thankfully!
Thank you for your great assistance (I sure it wasn’t the only time:)).
Many thanks, Best regards,
Hi Lesley,
Thanks for your help. Your clear advice really helped. Please see responses below.
Regards,
Thank you very much lesley; I will read through everything today.
You have been brilliant.
Thanks very much indeed for all your help, I’m extremely grateful, and very impressed with the service you provide. I will certainly come back to you if I encounter any further HR issues.
All best regards, Barney (Booksellers) May 2016
Thanks Leslie, yes it is kind of laughable really isn’t it!
But so reassuring to have you at the end of an email telling me I’m not totally mad…Take care ;-),Thanks.
“Dear Lesley, Many thanks for your time on the phone this morning and for such a through summary of the main points discussed. It has been very helpful. Kind Regards”
2022