Employment contracts, policies, and procedures
As an employer, you have legal obligations regarding the documentation you provide to employees. To protect you and your employees it is always advisable to provide a written contract that clearly defines the terms and conditions of employment.
Our specialist employment solicitors can advise and assist with drafting contracts of employment and other policies and procedures, ensuring they are successfully implemented. We can also assist with revising and updating employment documentation and implementing changes to terms and conditions of employment. We will always take the time to get to know your business and advise you on any specific information that may need to be included, to meet the needs of your business.
Redundancy, Restructuring and Business Reorganisation.
Parental, Family-Friendly and Flexible working rights.
Industrial Relations.
Trades Unions & Collective Bargaining.
Disciplinary Action.
Employee Relations and Dealing with Grievances.
Employment Tribunal Claims.
TUPE.
Redundancy, Restructuring and Business Reorganisation:
If your business is going through change, it is important to consider the rights that employees have in relation to business restructuring and redundancy.
Expert advice can be vital to a business to ensure that the correct legal processes are followed, and costly mistakes are avoided. Our experienced employment solicitors can help you by advising on all aspects of business reorganisation, including the consultation obligations, and ensuring you follow redundancy procedures that are fair and legally compliant.
Parental, Family-Friendly and Flexible working rights:
As an employer it is often difficult to know how to deal with requests for time off by employees or permanent changes to their working hours, especially if it is to manage their family responsibilities.
Many employers are cautious about when they can say 'no' or are unclear as to if payment is required to absent employees for all family related absences.
We can offer policies and procedures to guide you and your managers when it comes to dealing with pay and leave for dependents, maternity, paternity and adoption. We can also provide additional support when you are dealing with complex matters such as:
Sickness and maternity leave.
Flexible working requests.
Redundancy and maternity leave.
Repeated absences for family emergencies and the right to receive pay.
Shared parental leave.
Part-time working.
Industrial Relations
We can provide advice on:
Voluntary and semi-voluntary recognition agreements.
Collective Bargaining.
Requests by unions for recognition.
Compulsory recognition processes, including dealings with the Central Arbitration Committee.
Working to rule and other actions short of a strike.
Time off rules for union-related activities.
Prevent discrimination against employees for union membership.
Strike action, including advice on the legality of notices to employers, ballot papers, and other parts of the process.
Rights to pay for partial job performance.
Collective Agreements.
Trades Unions & Collective Bargaining:
The legislation and case law which surrounds the rights and obligations of unions, and their members is vast and complicated.
If your organisation recognises a trade union, you will be under certain duties to notify and consult with a trade union, including instances of collective redundancies, transfers of business ownership and certain changes to pension schemes.
Failure to inform or consult can impact workforce relations and result in financial penalties.
Whether you are negotiating working conditions, for example pay and holiday, discussing changes to your employees’ terms and conditions or responding to threats of strike action, industrial relations require a clear process framework, skilful handling and clarity of objectives for your organisation.
Dealing with trade unions requires knowledge not just of the legal rules and procedures, it also requires consideration of the repetitional risks of mishandling negotiations or a dispute.
Further points for employers to consider include:
Collective agreements: A clear and up to date collective agreement will provide the most effective framework for governing the relationship and setting expectations as to union involvement and engagement.
Proactive: It is possible to make voluntary agreements with unions to regularly inform and consult them about business and workplace issues.
Clear strategy: Ensure management is agreed and clear on the strategy to take in any trade union negotiation or dispute. U-turns under pressure could undermine future negotiations. It is important to mean what you say. The stance taken by an organisation in any negotiation or dispute will influence perception and reception in future dealings.
Political position: Consider the wider political agenda driving the union position. This will heavily influence the prospects of achieving compromises.
Disciplinary Action:
Managing employees that may have failed in their duties or acted inappropriately can be complex and time consuming. We advise on when it is appropriate to take disciplinary action against an employee and the correct procedures to follow, to ensure that the risks to your business are minimised. We can provide practical day to day advice to help you manage any workplace problems.
Employee Relations and Dealing with Grievances:
We offer pragmatic advice in relation to managing employees on a day- to- day basis, ensuring that you minimise risks to your business and maintain effective and productive employee relations. We can assist you with dealing with performance concerns, managing sickness absences, dealing with grievances and any other issues affecting the employment relationship.
Employment Tribunal Claims:
If you have a claim made against you by a current or past employee, or a prospective employee, we can work with you at the early stages to identify potential risks and strategies to approach the claim. It is important to know as early as possible, what the claim could be worth and what resources you want to allocate in defending the claim.
In addition, to providing assistance throughout the employment tribunal process, we can assist you to negotiate settlements to avoid matters going to the Tribunal.
Transfer of Undertakings (TUPE)
The policies and procedures involved in the transfer of a business, or a major contract and its employees, can be complex and costly to any organisation.
We can offer advice to both employees and the employer, consulting on the correct procedures that need to be followed during this process and ensuring above all the legal obligations are met and complied with.
TUPE introduced three concepts into Employment Law:
The automatic transfer principle: where a new company takes over all or part of another company, or when a major contract moves between providers, they automatically inherit the existing staff as well. The contracts of the existing staff are retained as well, and the new company inherits all rights, liabilities and obligations in relation to them.
Protection for employees against dismissal in connection with a TUPE.
The obligation to inform and consult with representatives of the affected employees.
For example, if there is a failure to carry out the duty to inform and consult with the affected employees then the businesses can be liable to pay compensation.
Then there is a high degree of protection for transferring employees, meaning that dismissal for a reason connected with the transfer will be automatically unfair, unless it is for an economic, technological or organisational reason entailing changes in the workforce (an “ETO reason”), with set limitations upon when this reason will apply.
Businesses often face issues as to the terms and conditions of the transferring employees and may wish to consider altering these to align them with the workforce already in place, for example if the rates of pay of the incoming staff are higher. However, such changes will be unlawful unless they are unconnected to the transfer or for an ETO reason, so again employers must beware taking such action and should never do so without taking advice.
We can provide you with advice in relation to the following:
Changing terms of employment in a TUPE Transfer.
Dismissals.
Obligations to inform and consult.
Obligation to provide ‘employee liability information’.
We are specialists in handling these complex legal matters for businesses. We can assist both the old employer who is transferring the business or contract and the new employer acquiring the business or contract.
If you need expert advice and assistance with TUPE issues, schedule a free consultation.
Our Support:
We can support organisational management and HR professionals working with trade unions to manage relations and specific industrial issues.
We can provide ongoing guidance to help improve relations with employee representatives.
We also support you with negotiations for routine matters and in cases of immediate industrial relation issues or threats of action.
Other areas of Employment Law:
Call us for more information on 01527 892949 or click below to fill out a call back form:
Why choose Bank Solicitors:
At Bank Solicitors we will be with you every step of the way, providing advice and services to help you through any area in employment law – from contracts to dismissals, redundancy to discrimination. We can also represent you at an Employment Tribunal or can help you negotiate a settlement.
We provide our clients with expert legal advice, as well as friendly and straight-talking legal services. You can rely on us to keep you informed of any changes throughout the process.