Employment Law Solicitors for Employers

If employees have engaged in misconduct or even gross misconduct, you will need to progress a disciplinary process. Such procedures are delicate and, to protect yourself from employment claims, it’s advisable to seek the advice of a solicitor.

At Rollits, we have extensive experience in supporting employers with misconduct and disciplinary procedures. If you need employment advice in this area, our business employment solicitors in York can help.

To run your business successfully, it is vital that you have clearly drafted employment contracts and policies. These documents allow you to efficiently govern the relationships between yourself and your staff.

Clearly drafted contracts and policies provide clarity, ensuring that employees understand standards and expectations. Our solicitors can support you to create employee policies, including:

• Policies for absence and sickness
• Policies for diversity and equality
• Disciplinary and grievance processes
• Health and safety
• Performance reviews
• Whistleblowing
• Flexible working
• Equal Opportunities

In order to comply with employment law, it’s crucial that employers follow the correct recruitment procedures. Our lawyers can help you to review your processes, to ensure that everything is above board.

We can assess all of your recruitment matters, including eligibility to work in the UK, DBS checks, avoiding discrimination and data protection. If you have any concerns about your current recruitment processes, we can support you to conduct a full review.

Where business leaders need to make redundancies, it is important that they follow the correct procedures. It is vital that employers ensure a fair process – they must use the proper consultation steps and create a redundancy pool. It is also necessary to use fair selection criteria and to inform employees of any alternative forms of employment at the company. Where 20 or more redundancies are proposed, a redundancy collective consultation process will be required.

Our employment law solicitors can support businesses to adhere to employment law when considering redundancies. We can also support you if you are dealing with redundancy appeals and disputes.

Where you make adjustments to the structure of your organisation, you’ll need to ensure that you consider the rights of your employees, particularly if you need to change job roles or make redundancies.

When restructuring a company, it may be necessary to offer employees alternative roles. Where employees are unsatisfied with these offers, you may require support throughout tribunal claims processes.

At Rollits, we have helped plenty of different businesses who were going through restructuring processes. If you have any questions about the associated legal procedures, our corporate law solicitors can help.

TUPE transfers can occur when a business is bought or sold, or when services are outsourced or brought back in-house.  When TUPE applies employers must follow a TUPE informing and consulting process involving employees.  The consequences of failing to comply with TUPE can be commercially significant and tribunal awards are punitive. Our employment lawyers have extensive experience guiding employers through the TUPE process.

Employee and employer disputes are common. When these occur, it’s important that they are handled correctly. Disputes may arise over working conditions, pay, discrimination or unfair dismissal.

We can provide specific employment advice tailored to your needs when these circumstances arise. Our lawyers will make every effort to settle claims using alternative dispute resolution processes.

Sometimes, complex matters cannot be settled with mediation or other conciliatory approaches. In these situations, our team will support employers with employment tribunal claims procedures.

Capability procedures are used to determine what will happen when an employee is unable to perform their role. The procedure should set out how that inability will be managed moving forward.

Our business employment solicitors can help employers follow legally sound capability procedures, whether that’s supporting the employee to improve or eventually arranging their exit from the business if necessary.

The right to request flexible working is long-established, although since the Covid-19 pandemic many employees expect to work flexibly.  Many employers have embraced flexible working and increased productivity.  Rollits’ employment solicitors can advise employers who wish to initiate flexible working arrangements by putting policies in place or respond to flexible working requests.

In some circumstances an employer has an obligation to make reasonable adjustments in respect of a disabled employee.  It is sometimes difficult for employers to identify when an individual is disabled and when reasonable adjustments are required.  Our employment solicitors have extensive experience advising clients across sectors in respect of making reasonable adjustments.

Individuals are protected from discrimination during the recruitment process and beyond termination of employment.  Discrimination is an extremely complex area, and it can often be unintended (for example, indirect discrimination).  Rollits’ employment team regularly advise employers facing discrimination complaints and employment tribunal claims. The team also produces and can advise in respect of policies and procedures to avoid discrimination claims.

Often it is in the best interest of the employer and employee for the employment to terminate. As an alternative to following a formal capability, redundancy or disciplinary procedure an employer can engage in a protected conversation and terminate employment under the terms of a settlement agreement.

Our employment lawyers can provide all documentation and advice necessary to undertake a protected conversation with an employee. Our employment team also draft and negotiate settlement agreements.