Employers

We can provide employment law advice at any stage of a workplace problem and support you to negotiate directly with the employee or through their lawyers or we negotiate on your behalf.

We can advise you on all aspects of employment law including:

• Advising and guiding you through redundancy exercises
• Reviewing your contracts and policies to ensure they comply with current employment law
• Managing staff who are underperforming
• Managing maternity, paternity, adoption and family issues
• Dealing with flexible working requests
• Managing sickness absence (long term or otherwise)
• Resolving disputes with employees or between employees
• Dealing with disciplinary and grievance issues
• Resolving a dispute during Early Conciliation or during litigation

Workplace problems can be resolved with minimal conflict if you and your employee agree to try mediation. Mediation is a conversation between you and your employee helped by a neutral, qualified mediator. 

It can help to leave difficult issues in the past and find an agreed way forward. 

Mediation is confidential and without prejudice, so if agreement isn’t reached, all other avenues remain open (including disciplinary and grievance processes).

For more details, see our Mediation Services page

You should consider documenting any resolution reached with an employee following workplace conflict using a Settlement Agreement.

Settlement Agreements are legally binding contracts whereby employees accept a sum of money or other consideration in return for agreeing not to pursue any potential legal claims they may have against an employer.  They usually include confidentiality or non-disclosure clauses. 

To find out more, see our Settlement Agreement Services page

The law expects that employers will take employment decisions fairly and reasonably. In disciplinary and grievance matters, establishing the facts of the situation is fundamental to dealing fairly with the people involved.

In the vast majority of cases, an employer can and should deal with an investigation internally. Occasionally however, the employer may benefit from some external support from an independent investigator. 

See our Investigation Services page to find out more.

We can provide bespoke training for your organisation on avoiding conflict in the workplace.  

For example, we can provide information about the law on managing poor performance mixed with discussion of real life examples and skills to handle conflict and difficult conversations.