Employment Contracts and Agreements, Policies and Procedures

Every employer must provide an employee with a written statement of their terms and conditions of employment, within two months of their employment commencing.

Such statement or contract should cover all the information required by the Employment Rights Act 1996 including, for example, the names of the parties, start dates, job title, salary, place of work, hours of work, holidays, sickness and notice. Well drafted employment contracts also contain protections for your business and ensure clarity of arrangements between employer and employee.

It is also good practice for employers to have a wide range of policies in place, often in the form of a handbook, to deal with all aspects of the employment relationship such as disciplinary and grievance procedures, family friendly policies covering flexible working and maternity, paternity and adoption leave (and, now, shared parental leave), as well as policies to cover the terms of any benefits provided to employees.

Our specialist team of employment solicitors can provide you with all employment contracts, policies and procedures necessary to suit the needs of your business, as well as providing you with invaluable advice on implementing, varying, updating and enforcing your contracts and policies, as the employment relationship progresses.

We are aware that clarity on costs is vitally important to our clients. As standard practice, we give our clients an estimate of the costs involved in undertaking any piece of work at the outset. We then provide cost updates on a your case on a regular basis.

We also work closely with our clients to ensure that we meet their expectations both in terms of their objectives for a particular piece of work and in relation to costs. In addition, we are happy to discuss fixed fees and retainer arrangements and agreements if that is helpful to you.

Finally, your work is carried out by a solicitor in the team, who knows your business best. It is also carried out at the appropriate level, depending on the complexity, sensitivity and importance of the matter.

Recent examples of our work in this area include:

• Conducting a review of all the contracts and policies for a household name education client in order to advise on whether the terms were contractual or non-contractual so that the client could act accordingly

• Producing a handbook and various contracts for employees in different roles for a national client providing consultancy services

• Providing a review of contracts and policies for a large recycling company in connection with advising on a TUPE transfer

• Drafting a new handbook for a manufacturing client, including policies on the new regime of maternity and shared parental leave and pay

• Drafting IT policies for various clients to enable them to manage employee use of IT, inside and outside work, and the right to monitor IT use

• Advising a UK technology business with a US parent company on how best to manage the transfer of data from the UK to the US including advice on the US safe harbour principles

• Advising an international manufacturing business on data protection, how to transfer data safely outside the UK, including European Commission model clauses and Binding Corporate rules