Day to Day Employment Law and HR advice

Where you have performance or conduct concerns in respect of an employee, it can be tempting to take action without following a process. Whilst this may be suitable for shorter serving staff, employment law is very process driven when you have longer serving staff – we can guide you through disciplinary processes in a straightforward, time effective way. We can also ensure your disciplinary procedures don’t tie you up in knots.

Whether you receive a single grievance or a collective grievance from multiple members of staff, it is important to take it seriously and consider it through the appropriate channels. A fair grievance procedure can help an employee understand whether they have perhaps misunderstood a situation and can help an employer understand whether there are learnings to help improve in the future. Either way, whilst inconvenient, a grievance process can be a valuable tool for businesses and staff alike.

We can help businesses drill down into the salient points of a grievance, and carry out the right investigation, to ensure a fair outcome is reached.

High levels of absence can have a significant impact on a business. We can work with you to help you to ensure your staff follow sickness absence procedures, reduce intermittent absence and in cases of longer-term sickness absence, support them in their return to work.

Whether you have a staff member having their first child, or wanting to change their pattern of work, it is important to know your legal obligations as an employer and to communicate clearly with your employee to avoid any uncertainty. We can work with you to ensure you know what you need to be doing and when.

We appreciate that redundancies are a difficult time for both the business and its staff; however, sometimes they are unavoidable. Having a clear business rationale and a process that all staff understand can reduce undue worry and unnecessary delay. We assist businesses with both individual and collective (when businesses are proposing to dismiss 20 or more staff at one site in a 90-day period) redundancy processes, by not only ensuring that the process being followed is correct, but that the business reasons for the redundancy are sound.

When an employer changes, the employees have the right to transfer to the new employer. This part is obvious. What isn’t straightforward is the consultation process which must take place before the employer changes and the limitations put on the new employer in respect of its new staff. We can help you understand your obligations and guide you through the TUPE process and how to manage the transition moving forwards.

Sometimes it gets to the point that an employee wishes to leave, or a business wishes to part company with a member of staff and the business is concerned that a claim may arise.

Where you are paying out sums of money in excess of staff’s legal entitlements, it is important to ensure that not only is the correct process followed, but the end documentation is legally compliant and protects the business.

We advise employers on both settlement agreements and ACAS facilitated exits and draft documentation to ensure that it ticks the right boxes legally.