Employment Disputes

To successfully defend a claim for unfair dismissal, an employer must have a fair reason for dismissal, follow a fair procedure and act reasonably in all the circumstances.

To bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim, an employee must usually have two years’ continuous service. However, this qualifying period is set to be reduced to six months from January 2027. There is no qualifying service requirement for automatically unfair dismissal claims or discrimination claims, which are protected from day one.

There is also no minimum service requirement for wrongful dismissal claims. Wrongful dismissal arises where an employer breaches the employment contract, most commonly by failing to give the correct notice or notice pay. This can still apply even where there is no written contract, although evidence of agreed terms may be needed.

Constructive dismissal occurs where an employee resigns in response to a fundamental breach of contract by their employer. These claims are often more complex than straightforward unfair dismissal claims because the employee must show that the breach was serious enough to justify resignation and that they left in response to it.

You must usually present an Employment Tribunal claim within three months less one day of the dismissal or incident. Once a claim is issued, an employer normally has 28 days from receipt of the ET1 claim form to submit their response (ET3).

It is important to seek legal advice as soon as possible due to these strict deadlines.

The Equality Act 2010 protects people from unlawful treatment because of protected characteristics such as age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage or civil partnership, and pregnancy or maternity.

There is no minimum service requirement to bring a discrimination claim, and applicants may also be able to bring a claim if they allege they have been discriminated against during an interview process.

Discrimination can be direct, indirect, harassment or victimisation.

A disability is an injury or impairment that has a substantial and long-term effect on the employee’s ability to perform day to day activities, such impairments can affect their physical or mental health and can include hidden disabilities such as neurodivergence.

There is also a duty to make reasonable adjustments for individuals with a disability and not to subject them to discrimination because of something connected to disability e.g. sickness absence. An individual can be discriminated against because they are perceived to have a protected characteristic, or they are associated with someone who has a protected characteristic (e.g. the parent of a disabled child).

Restructuring or reorganising a business is a natural response to a changing marketplace or a shift in customer demand. This can result in the need to make redundancies. A redundancy can amount to an unfair dismissal if the employee was unfairly selected for redundancy or the correct process was not followed.

It is anticipated that new rules on fire and rehire contained in the Employment Rights Bill will come into force in October 2026. Fire and rehire is a final step employers can take in some circumstances to force changes to terms and conditions of employment where these cannot be agreed. If you are considering making changes to your terms and conditions, you should consider doing this well before the new rules are expected to come into force.

Data Protection legislation places obligations on your business to protect the confidential information you hold about your employees and customers.  Failing to comply with these obligations can lead to substantial fines from the Information Commissioner.

We can assist you in dealing with any subject access requests made by employees.

All businesses have to discipline or dismiss staff from time to time.  We understand that it is never a pleasant thing to do.

To avoid unfair dismissal claims, an employer must have one of five potentially fair reasons to dismiss an employee. It must also follow the correct procedures and act reasonably. Usually, employee’s need 2 years’ service to bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim, however this is likely to change soon and currently there is no minimum service requirement to qualify to bring an automatically unfair dismissal or discrimination claim.

We can guide you through the right process to reduce the risk of subsequent employment tribunal claims.  If you decide not to dismiss after conducting an investigation and perhaps disciplinary proceedings, we will make sure you have the right paperwork in place to avoid recurrence and help you deal with it if it occurs.

From time to time you will be confronted with issues and conflicts that may arise in the workplace. Staff grievances have the potential to absorb a huge amount of management time, impact staff morale and retention.  It is therefore crucial to have the correct procedures in place to deal with them. Often, raising a grievance is the first step to a tribunal claim, especially where the employee has taken legal advice.  It is therefore important that your managers are trained in how to handle a grievance including, how to conduct a reasonable investigation and how to conduct a grievance hearing. We can assist with ensuring the managers involved understand any relevant legal issues to assist them in reaching a legally justifiable conclusion.

We are experts in managing employee grievances.  We will help you every step of the way so that you achieve the best possible outcome, minimising the demands on management time and the risk of any tribunal claims.

Whistleblowing involves a complainant disclosing breaches of legal obligations in the public interest.

Often dealing with whistleblowing allegations will not be vastly different from dealing with standard grievance or disciplinary procedures save that investigations can be complicated where a whistleblower chose to remain anonymous. Whistleblowers, however, have protections against detriment and dismissal.

If you receive a claim which involves whistleblowing, we will advise you on prospects of success, on your potential liabilities, your options for settling or defending the claim and how it may be resolved most cost-effectively. We can prepare your defence, advise you throughout the process and instruct Counsel to represent you at any hearings.

Employees can bring breach of contract claims, particularly relating to notice periods. We can advise on these claims and represent you in these proceedings.

Restrictive Covenants limit what an employee can do moving forward and are a form of protection for the employer following the employee’s departure. We can update your employment contracts to include restrictive covenants preventing your staff working for your local competitors after they leave your employment and preventing them from contacting your clients. We can advise on the restrictive covenants that you already have in place and advise you on how best to deal with any breaches of the covenants.

We can also prepare confidentiality clauses to keep your sensitive business information secret.

These clauses are enforceable in the courts by way of an injunction, and you can seek damages from your ex-employees if they breach them, but only if they are properly drafted.  Clauses which are too widely drawn will be deemed unreasonable and the courts will refuse to uphold them – make sure you get expert advice.

Settlement agreements are commonly used as a way to bring about an agreed termination of employment. In exchange for the employee receiving a payment as compensation for termination of their employment, the employee gives up their claims against the employee, apart from a few exclusions. The employee will be required to obtain independent legal advice on the content of the agreement for the agreement to be valid.

In some circumstances, for example, in the case of a performance management process, it can be more cost effective and consume less management time to offer a settlement agreement rather than completing a potentially lengthy performance management process. It can allow an under-performing employee to be replaced with a higher performing employee more swiftly.

We can prepare a settlement agreement for the employee which settles their potential claims and includes duties of confidentiality if required. We can advise on suitable payments to include in the settlement agreement and address any issues which need to be addressed, for example if an employee does not have appropriate post-termination restrictions in their contract of employment this can potentially be addressed in the settlement agreement. If the employee’s solicitor seeks to negotiate the terms of the agreement, we can advise you on the amendments requested and negotiate on your behalf.

If a claim has been issued, we will advise you on prospects of success, on your potential liabilities, your options for settling or defending the claim and how it may be resolved most cost-effectively. We can prepare your defence, advise you throughout the process and instruct Counsel to represent you at any hearings.

You need to respond to any claim within a specific deadline, so it is important to obtain legal advice as soon as possible.

Holiday pay is often not straightforward, particularly for employees who work paid overtime or irregular hours or who are required to be on call.

We can advise you on the holiday pay you are legally required to pay your employees, and we may be able to assist you in dealing with historic liabilities where the correct holiday pay has not been paid.

If you receive an Employment Tribunal claim regarding holiday pay or non-payment of any benefits, we will advise you on prospects of success, on your potential liabilities, your options for settling or defending the claim and how it may be resolved most cost-effectively. We can prepare your defence, advise you throughout the process and instruct Counsel to represent you at any hearings.

Employees have a day one right to request flexible working. There are specific processes and timeframes to follow in respect of these requests. Employers are only allowed to refuse a request on specific grounds.

Employers must be mindful that refusing a flexible working request can lead to discrimination claims including failure to make reasonable adjustments and indirect disability discrimination claims or indirect sex discrimination claims.

If you receive an Employment Tribunal claim regarding flexible working or family leave, we will advise you on prospects of success, on your potential liabilities, your options for settling or defending the claim and how it may be resolved most cost-effectively. We can prepare your defence, advise you throughout the process and instruct Counsel to represent you at any hearings.