HR support

We will be there to answer questions and provide advice when you need it. Find out more

Our team can assist you with the development, writing and execution of contracts that abide by employment regulations and law.

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Whether through an individual or a company.

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This includes both basic and bespoke handbooks.

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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 work place. 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.

Unfortunately, people do not always get along.  Within your business, this might be a minor inconvenience, or in the worst case it could involve one staff member bullying, harassing or victimising another. As an employer, reacting correctly can bring matters to a swift conclusion, saving management time, potentially avoiding formal grievances and helping to prevent sickness absence and ultimately tribunal claims.

We can put in place the policies that make it clear that this behaviour is not acceptable.  We can train your managers in how to deal with bullying, harassment and victimisation in the workplace and advise you throughout grievance proceedings.  If the worst happens, we can try and resolve a potential claim within ACAS Early Conciliation or defend you against any subsequent claims from your employees.

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 choses to remain anonymous. Whistleblowers, however, have protections against detriment and dismissal.

Performance concerns can significantly impact on business performance. Concerns require careful management through performance improvement plans which give the employee the guidance and support required to assist them in meeting the requirements of the role. If the employee has a disability, which may be impacting their performance, it is prudent for employers to consider whether any reasonable adjustments can be made.

If they are unable to meet the requirements of the role, the ultimate outcome may be dismissal. We can guide you through this process to reduce the risk of an employment tribunal claim.

Sickness absence can impact on business performance. It is important to manage sickness absence issues carefully, particularly where the employee in question has a long-term health condition, which may amount to a disability. Employers have a duty to safeguard health and safety (both physical and psychological) of their employees. They may also need to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities. This is important to avoid any claims for unfair dismissal and discrimination.

We can advise on the procedures to follow for sickness absence processes, advise on whether the employee may have a disability and prepare the relevant documentation in relation to this.

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.

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.

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 with reviewing contracts of employment to ensure your confidentiality provisions are sufficient. We can also prepare a Data Protection Policy and Employee Privacy Notice or assist with responding to a data subject access request.

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 in order 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.

When you buy or sell a business or when a contract is in-sourced, outsourced or put up for tender, certain staff may automatically transfer with their work on their existing terms and conditions. The transferring of staff from one organisation to another is both challenging and complex for all parties, especially as it is not always clear whether the rules set by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) apply, leading to disputes over whether staff transfer or remain with the existing employer. The existing employer will often prefer they transfer to avoid potential redundancy costs, whereas the potential new employee will often prefer they do not transfer so that they are not obliged to honour the contract terms which may be more generous than those of their existing workforce or that they would offer to new recruits. TUPE is a complex piece of legislation and often an area which employers neglect, particularly when bidding for contracts before they commit to the contract.

TUPE provides your employees with the right to be informed and consulted in relation to the transfer of their employment, it preserves their continuity of service, as well as giving them protection from dismissal and prohibiting or rendering void many changes to certain terms of employment.

We are able to assist in guiding you through this process at any stage, but the application of TUPE is best considered early before the bid or tender stage, before committing, for example, to a new contract in a tender exercise without proper consideration of the transferring staff costs you may be assuming.

Restructuring or reorganising a business is a natural response to a changing marketplace or a shift in customer demand.  If you need to make staff redundant, then you need the confidence that you are following the correct procedure in order to minimise the risk of a tribunal claim because you haven’t consulted and selected properly.

We are experts in business restructuring and redundancies and we can guide you through the process at every stage.  There are different requirements for individual and collective consultation depending on the number of employees involved which we can advise you on to help you avoid protective award claims.

We can explain the most cost-effective options to you, assist with the consultation and selection process and help you manage any appeals. We can also advise you on seeking volunteers for redundancy and on how to enhance redundancy packages without infringing discrimination legislation.

We can highlight the risks and potential liabilities as well as the best practice procedures. We can advise on statutory redundancy payments and the enforceability of enhanced contractual payments. Our aim is to ensure that our clients are fully aware of the correct procedures required in order to reduce their risks and potential liabilities.

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Staff should be aware of the key policies, particularly those relating to anti-discrimination, disciplinary procedures, IT and information security, dress code and sickness absence, all of which will affect them on a daily basis.  Your managers should have a greater understanding still, so that they have the right knowledge, skills and support to identify and address problems as they occur and before they escalate.

We can provide comprehensive training for your staff on the following areas:

• performance management;
• managing sickness absence;
• employment status and employment rights;
• equal opportunities;
• disciplinaries, grievances and settlement discussions; and
• bullying in the workplace.

This can be held in house or at a neutral venue and we are happy to tailor the courses to cover specific areas that are of importance to you.