Employment Law for Employers
We provide expert support for managing your staff while protecting your commercial interests
Business leaders routinely say that the greatest asset of their business is their people. It is, therefore, good commercial sense to invest in making sure you have the best possible relationship with your employees and that any problems can be swiftly and effectively managed.
Relationships between employer and employee should, in a perfect world, be governed by goodwill and common sense on both sides. In reality, increasingly complex regulation is involved and this gives rise to many potential pitfalls that can have adverse consequences for employers.
Longmores employment lawyers are here to help you avoid those pitfalls and empower you to create effective working relationships with your employees.
We enable businesses of all sizes across a range of industries to foster productive and positive relationships with their employees. We can assist you with attracting, retaining and motivating the best talent available whilst at the same time protecting your commercial interests, including when issues arise.
We know that dealing with difficult employee issues can cause considerable tension and management distraction. With the right advice, we can save you time, money and stress, freeing you up to keep driving your business forward.
Our approach to advising clients is commercial, no-nonsense and robust. We focus on what really matters to you, going to the heart of any issue, so you gain a swift and cost-effective resolution.
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- Richard Gvero
- Joint Senior Partner, Head of Commercial and Head of Employment
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- Miranda Mulligan
- Senior Solicitor specialising in Employment law
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Clear, expert UK employment law advice for employers
Our experienced, specialist employment solicitors regularly advise businesses on a wide range of issues, including:
- Employment law health checks
- Employment contracts, policies and employee handbooks
- Employment termination and settlement agreements
- Workplace disputes, including grievances and disciplinary procedures
- Restrictive covenants
- Restructuring and redundancy
- TUPE (protecting employment rights and putting in place relevant protections when businesses change hands)
- Ongoing HR legal advice
- Employment law training
- Workplace mediation
- Employment tribunal representation
Work with industry-leading employment lawyers
Our employment lawyers consistently appear in the directories of leading practitioners and are ranked by the leading client guide, The Legal 500. This provides strong assurance that we offer an exceptional service.
The team is led by Joint Senior Partner Richard Gvero, who is closely supported by Associate Solicitor Miranda Mulligan. Both Richard and Miranda are individually recommended by The Legal 500.
Miranda and Richard are members of the Employment Lawyers Association (ELA), further emphasising their specialist expertise. Richard and Miranda are also accredited mediators.
Speak to our employment law solicitors for employers
To discuss your requirements with our proactive, commercially astute employment lawyers, please get in touch.
Our employment law advice services for employers
Employment law health checks
It is really important to make sure your employment practices stay up to date. Failure to do so can leave you at risk of workplace disputes and employment claims, as well as often impacting your ability to manage your staff effectively.
We offer a fixed fee employment health check to get your organisation fit and functional, protecting you against potentially costly employment issues.
Our employment health check includes:
- A review of your employment contract, policies and procedures
- A clear set of recommendations, including a traffic light system to identify areas in need of improvement
Find out more about our Employment Health Check.
Employment contracts, policies and handbooks
Getting the right terms of employment in place can help to set expectations and provide a strong framework for successful employee relations. It is important to have bespoke terms of employment tailored to the needs of your business as this ensures all eventualities can be considered and accounted for.
Our employment lawyers for employers can assist with matters such as:
- Drafting contracts of employment
- Staff handbooks and other key policies
- Restrictive covenants & post-termination restrictions
We can help you get all of the basic employment documents in place with our Employment Essentials package.
Find out more about how we can help with employment contracts, policies and handbooks.
Employee terminations and settlement agreements
Sometimes it is necessary to end someone’s employment, whether due to an issue with the employee or the changing needs of your organisation. Whatever the reason, dismissals must be handled very carefully as there is a significant risk of an employment claim if the process you follow is not legally watertight.
Our employment lawyers can help employers with terminations relating to matters including:
- Poor performance
- Misconduct
- Redundancy
- Long term sickness absence
Settlement agreements are a common way to resolve employment disputes and to head off potential employment claims, including in relation to terminations. They allow you to secure the agreement of an employee or former employee that they will not bring a claim in relation to a particular issue, usually in exchange for a one-off payment.
Our team can assist with matters including:
- Negotiating settlement terms
- Drafting settlement agreements
Find out more about how we can help with employee terminations and settlement agreements.
Workplace disputes, grievances and disciplinary procedures
Workplace disputes, such as those involving grievances and disciplinary issues, can be very damaging to a business. They can take up a lot of management time and energy, as well as have the potential to lead to employment claims if not handled correctly.
Our employment lawyers advise employers on matters such as:
- Harassment and bullying
- Discrimination complaints
- Benefit and pay disputes, including in relation to holiday pay
- Gender pay gap complaints
- Working time and conditions disputes
Find out more about how we can help with workplace disputes, grievances and disciplinary procedures.
Restrictive covenants
Restrictive covenants provide protection for employers against actions an employee could take that might hurt the organisation, either during or after their employment. They can be included in employment contracts or may be a part of settlement negotiations when resolving an employment dispute or managing an employee exit.
We can advise on all types of employment restrictive covenants, including:
- Non-compete clauses
- No-solicitation and non-dealing clauses
- Anti-poaching clauses
Find out more about how we can help with restrictive covenants.
Restructuring and redundancies
When the needs of a business change, it is sometimes necessary to move employees within the business, change their roles or reduce the size of your workforce by making redundancies. It is essential that these processes are handled sensitively and in full compliance with UK employment law to avoid the potential for an employment claim.
Our employment lawyers can help employers with issues including:
- Conducting a fair redundancy process
- Redundancy settlement agreements
- TUPE (protecting employment rights and putting in place relevant protections when businesses change hands)
Find out more about how we can help with restructuring and redundancies.
TUPE advice for employers
When a business is sold, or a merger takes place, employees have strictly defined rights under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. This is commonly referred to as TUPE. Failure to comply with TUPE could open you up to employment claims, so it is important to understand and meet your obligations.
Our employment lawyers can advise employers on all aspects of TUPE, including:
- Advice on your TUPE liabilities
- Negotiating TUPE provisions in contracts of sale
- Support for TUPE consultations with employees
- Drafting letters to employees and employee representatives
Find out more about how we can help with TUPE and business sales.
Ongoing HR legal advice
To manage your team and deal effectively with any issues the right way, ongoing HR advice can be essential. We offer a complete HR package to get your employment practices set up correctly and then support you on an ongoing basis through our Longmores’ Employer Assistance Package (LEAP).
Our LEAP package includes:
- An initial consultation
- Preparation of essential employment documents
- Ongoing HR advice
- Preparing routine employee correspondence
- Advice on disciplinary and grievance procedures
- Access to our Employment Law Bulletin
- Optional insurance cover
Find out more about Longmores’ Employer Assistance Package (LEAP) and insurance cover.
Employment law training for employers
We offer tailored workshops and training programmes on various aspects of employment law to increase employers’ understanding of key employment law concepts and issues at all levels of an organisation.
With this training, our goal is to help employers:
- Understand their legal obligations as an employer
- More effectively manage their employees
- Avoid the potential for employment disputes
- Operate more effectively with minimal stress
Find out more about our employment law training for employers.
Workplace mediation
Mediation can be very effective for dealing with workplace disputes. It can allow such issues to be resolved quickly, quietly and cost-effectively, avoiding unnecessary conflict and harm to the business. Our employment lawyers are highly skilled in workplace mediation, so can help you to achieve positive outcomes for even the most challenging disputes.
Our employment lawyers can use workplace mediation for issues such as:
- Disagreements between co-workers
- Employer-employee disputes
- Disciplinary issues
- Grievances
Find out more about how we can help with workplace mediation.
Employment disputes and defending employment claims
We encourage the resolution of disputes where appropriate. Where that proves impracticable, we will present your case robustly and cost-effectively at an employment tribunal.
Our employment dispute resolution experts can assist with options including:
- Settlement agreements
- Employment tribunal representation
- Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) applications
Find out more about how we can help with Employment Tribunal representation for employers.
Our employment advice fees for employers
Good employment law advice is an investment. It can save your organisation a lot of time and money in the long run by protecting you against the risk of problems, particularly employment claims.
That said, cost is always a key consideration, so we work hard to keep our fees to a minimum while ensuring we are able to provide the very best employment advice and service for our clients.
We believe in complete transparency about our fees, so will be happy to talk you through our charges and provide a realistic estimate of costs at the outset. For some of our services, we are able to offer fixed fees or capped fee deals where appropriate, giving you certainty over the costs involved in working with our employment lawyers.
To find out more about our employment advice fees and to request a cost estimate, please get in touch.
Speak to our employment law solicitors for employers
To discuss your requirements with our proactive, commercially astute employment lawyers, please get in touch.
