Employment Practice Liability Resources

This guidance offers practical advice to businesses to help with the operation of probationary periods and issues associated with this. Following this guidance will help to ensure that probationary periods are productive for both employers and employees and reduce the risk of successful claims by employees.

It is good practice for organisations to implement and uphold an Equality Policy. This template policy can be adapted for your organisation and is designed to be compliant with the Equality Act 2010.

This guidance offers practical advice to businesses in complying with minimum holiday rights for employees. The guidance contains advice regarding holiday pay and considerations for employers when drafting contracts. Following this guidance will help to reduce the risk of successful claims by employees.

This document contains template letters for adaptation for use at each stage of a formal disciplinary or poor performance procedure.  The letters are designed to accompany the Disciplinary and Poor Performance procedure also available on the PrivateEdge website and are compliant with the ACAS Code of Practice on Discipline and Grievance.

This guidance offers practical advice to businesses to help prevent bullying and harassment in the workplace and to deal with any cases that occur.  Following this guidance will help reduce the risk of successful claims by employees and help ensure good workplace morale.

It is important that poor performance is managed effectively, but commonly businesses find this one of the most difficult areas to manage and, as a result, do nothing, which compounds the problem and risks claims for unfair dismissal. This guidance note contains advice on best practice for managing poor performers and is compliant with the ACAS Code of Practice.

The purpose of this note is to set out some key legal and practical issues to consider when managing absent employees, to help ensure that any legal risk to your business is minimised.

Issues to consider:

Providing the relevant information - section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires you to provide employees with particulars of "any terms and conditions relating to incapacity for work due to sickness or injury, including any provision for sick pay". This information can either be contained in the employee's written statement of particulars of employment, or the statement can refer the employee to "the provisions of some other document which is reasonably accessible to the employee", such as a staff handbook or sickness absence policy...

This guide contains four template letters to be used by employers in conjunction with the grievance procedure. Using and adapting these template letters will help to ensure that employers follow the correct grievance procedure and reduce the risk of successful claims by employees.

This policy is for use by employers to provide practical assistance on the use of social media by employees. The policy can be easily adapted to suit individual employers’ requirements. Use of this policy will help employers ensure that use of social media by employees is appropriate and in the interests of the business.

This note provides a short guide to the steps an employer can take to protect itself from competition from ex-employees.

What are restrictive covenants?

Departing employees are often well-placed to take advantage of confidential information, strategic plans, customer and client details or other information about your business invaluable to its success, after the termination of their employment. They may attempt to use this information for the benefit of their new employer, or in order to set up a rival business. This can seriously harm your business...

This policy is for use by employers to provide practical assistance with responding to requests from employees for flexible working. The policy provides an overview of the working arrangements employees can request and the steps employers ought to take to respond to this. Following this policy will help to reduce the risk of successful claims by employees.

The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance about arrangements for sick pay and for reporting and managing sickness absence.

This policy deals with sick pay, reporting sickness absence and how we manage sickness absence. Failing to report absence under this policy or falsely claiming sick pay will be treated as misconduct.This policy does not form part of your contract of employment and we may amend it at any time. This policy is only applicable to employees.

This note provides a brief summary of rights to time off for antenatal appointments, maternity leave and pay.

Key points

• Employees are entitled to paid reasonable time off for antenatal care.
• Pregnant employees have the right to 52 weeks' maternity leave.
• Employees do not have to take 52 weeks if they do not want to, however, the first two weeks following the birth must be taken or four weeks for those who work in a factory...

This note provides a checklist of the steps involved in the recruitment process. It highlights issues that arise at each stage and sets out some of the pitfalls.

Before advertising

• An individual can bring an employment tribunal claim against an organisation for discrimination in recruitment. You should ensure that all staff involved in the recruitment process are aware of this.
• Compile a job description and a person specification. The job description should cover the main purpose and objectives of the job and the person specification should detail the experience, qualifications and skills necessary for the job in question...

This guidance offers practical advice to businesses to help with responding to grievances. Following this guidance will help to reduce the risk of successful claims by employees. 

Principles

Generally, employers should follow the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures
• to reduce risk of claims;
• to avoid uplift of compensation in any successful claim later brought by the employee (by up to 25 per cent).
The ACAS Code does not apply to collective grievances.
There is no requirement for an employee to raise the grievance before bringing a tribunal claim.
There is no requirement for your or the employee to engage in compulsory mediation...

This note provides practical guidance on how properly to deal with discipline and misconduct in the workplace to ensure that any legal risk to your business is minimised, in particular, to reduce the risk of claims of unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal.

This note sets out the procedure that you should follow where you have a redundancy situation. It includes details of the various meetings and letters that will be necessary.

Have you got a redundancy situation?

If you:
• are closing a business;
• are closing a site where employees work;
• no longer need the same number of employees to carry out a certain type of work.

You may have a genuine redundancy situation, which could lead to the dismissal of employees...

This policy sets out what we will do if compulsory redundancies become necessary, including the steps we will take to try to avoid redundancies.

Wherever possible we want to avoid compulsory redundancies but sometimes this is unavoidable. Things about our business may change, which may be the result of alterations to how we do things, technology moving on or a change in the market. These, and other changes, could all lead to a different need for employees...

All businesses should have a disciplinary and poor performance policy to help reduce legal risk by ensuring disciplinary matters are dealt with fairly and in accordance with the ACAS Code of Practice. This template policy can be adapted for your organisation and is designed to be compliant with the ACAS Code.

This policy is for use by employers to provide practical assistance for dealing with grievances or complaints raised by employees. The policy sets out the procedure to follow and the way to deal with any appeals. Following this policy will help to reduce the risk of successful claims by employees.

This note provides an overview of the origins of the furlough scheme, its implications for employers in relation to potential redundancies and key factors they need to consider, along with some associated complexities around working from home.

The introduction of the furlough scheme – a new term in UK employment law

The Covid-19 pandemic has seen huge numbers of businesses and workplaces closing or reducing the scope of their operations. In order to avoid large-scale redundancies, the UK Government introduced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme in March 2020. Under this scheme, employers can agree with an employee whose work is not needed (or not needed to the same extent) that the employee takes leave of absence from work but remains employed.

In 2013, the government introduced tribunal fees as a precondition for individuals being permitted to bring claims before the employment tribunal in the vast majority of cases. Prior to this, it had always been free to pursue a claim in the tribunal.

This guidance offers practical advice to businesses in complying with their rights and obligations under the Working Time Regulations. Following this guidance will help to reduce the risk of successful claims by employees.

These letters are designed to be used in a redundancy situation. Where there is a collective redundancy situation, additional consultation will be required with representatives of the employees and additional wording will need to be inserted in the letters.

Is your business prepared? Improper use of social media by employees carries potentially significant legal risks to businesses, including unauthorised disclosure of confidential information, infringement of party intellectual property rights, and liability for discriminatory, bullying or defamatory comments posted by employees.

In 2013, the government introduced tribunal fees as a precondition for individuals being permitted to bring claims before the employment tribunal in the vast majority of cases. Prior to this, it had always been free to pursue a claim in the tribunal.