Employment Law: Keeping you up-to-date

Keeping up-to-date with the latest employment law updates and HR insights can be a challenge. The law is ever changing and issues often need addressing...

Employment Law

Keeping you up-to-date and upskilled

Welcome

Keeping up-to-date with the latest employment law updates and HR insights can be a challenge. The law is ever changing and issues often need addressing quickly to avoid escalation.

Our national employment team helps you navigate through these employment law issues and stay one step ahead.

We deliver a wide range of legal and practical updates for senior HR leaders, and their teams and businesses, which are technically excellent and pragmatic, and cover the issues which those in HR roles need to understand. They’re easy to access, free and get straight to the point.

We also provide training for you and your colleagues, whether that’s through our back-to-basics sessions for line managers, mock employment tribunals, or something bespoke for your business.

We’re here to support you and your business be confident and equipped with the knowledge you need to manage employee issues effectively and mitigate risk. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

Jenny Arrowsmith

Partner, Employment

Get in touch

Free Legal Updates and Events

Our readily available resources for you and your business.

Free Legal Updates and Events

We’re passionate about delivering outstanding training and updates on all aspects of HR and employment law.

We offer:

Bite-sized legal updates
A comprehensive programme of training
Peer networking sessions aimed at HR professionals at all levels
And more.

Award-winning articles

To help you stay up-to-date, we provide regular bite-sized updates on key cases, breaking news and HR insight. Easy to read and highly accessible, our Passle articles are the first port of call for the latest news in employment law.

View our Passle updates

National programme of events

Throughout the year, we hold a comprehensive programme of events and updates for HR professionals. We’ll share our insights into latest developments, changes in legislation and case law, and delve deeper into specific matters, such as:

Hidden disabilities and how to deal with them
HR headaches and how to handle them
Rebooting your employment contracts and policies
Redundancy hints and tips and solution focussed answers.

Our national programme of events are suitable for anyone who is in an HR role or has HR responsibilities, including line managers.

Receive our event invitations

“…it was brilliant, thank you. I found that it gave me a lot of reassurance with the multitude of cases I am managing at the moment…”

Senior HR forum

Our Senior HR forum is aimed at HR directors or Heads of HR.

It gives you the opportunity to be part of a peer group where we discuss high-level strategic employment matters on a confidential Chatham house rules basis.

You’ll take away insight, both from a legal and practical perspective, to help you in your leadership. Recent topics have included how to strategically deal with mental health and wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, and the future of the workplace and agile working models. Places are limited and fill up quickly.

HR Futures

Our HR Futures forum is aimed at those new to or developing in a HR role.

We discuss HR-related topics to upskill and inform of legal basics, providing case studies and examples, and allowing for interactive discussion. HR Futures also gives attendees the opportunity to build a network with peers with a similar level of expertise and experience.

“Great speakers today, came away feeling inspired with lots to reflect on.”

Sector-specific events

Every business faces unique challenges, opportunities and legal issues. We’re highly experienced in a variety of sectors and deliver sector specific events and updates to give you the insights you need to get ahead. Our sector specialisms include:

Education
Consumer
Manufacturing
Real Estate
Sport & Media

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HR and Employment Training for Line Managers

Our series of online training modules are an accessible and affordable way to upskill managers and HR professionals and help them manage employment law issues effectively.

HR and Employment Training for Line Managers

With our training, you will upskill and empower your team to tackle employment law issues head on – be that HR professionals, line managers or a senior leadership team.

Back-to-Basics training for line managers

Our Back-to–Basics series of online training modules for line managers gives managers the tools they need to:

Proactively manage the fundamentals of employment law
Identify key risks
Know when to raise these with HR at an early stage.

Line managers will be able to ensure that HR issues are addressed promptly and supportively to reduce the risk of legal claims against your business.

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After completing the courses, they'll be able to:

Handling disciplinaries – understand how to conduct investigations, how to hold a disciplinary hearing, what makes a fair dismissal, factors they should consider in their decision making, and how to manage employee “avoidance tactics”
Handling grievances – identify a grievance, investigate it and tackle common tricky issues which managers can encounter
Equality and diversity – understand the different types of discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 and how claims arise. They’ll be able to identify and manage inappropriate workplace “banter,” and understand the law on “disability” in the workplace and how it applies to day-to-day line management
Managing sickness absence – identify and manage short-term and long-term sickness absence, get the most out of Occupational Health referrals, and understand the requirements of a fair absence/ill-health capability dismissal. They’ll also explore some common tricky areas
Performance management – know the importance of nipping performance issues in the bud at an early stage and of holding difficult conversations on performance before things escalate. They’ll understand the formal processes they need to follow to dismiss fairly for capability reasons
Flexible working – know how to respond to flexible working requests and ensure compliance with the statutory framework
Employment Tribunal claims – know what to expect if they become involved in supporting the business with an ET claim. They'll have a basic understanding of the Tribunal process and how line managers may be involved in this (such as a witness) and what “disclosure” means. They'll also understand what to expect from being a witness in an ET. A great module if you’re facing an ET claim and want to prepare those involved.

The online format means that modules can be accessed at any time and completed at each manager’s own pace – perfect for busy schedules. The training would also be suitable for HR professionals at a junior level.

Most modules come with a workbook, allowing managers to put their knowledge into practice.

We offer a fixed price per module starting from only £300 plus VAT, or a discounted rate when purchasing multiple modules. As there’s no limit on the number of managers that can access the modules once purchased, this is a cost-effective option for any employer looking to upskill its full cohort of line managers – be that five or 50+.

We offer a fixed price per module, or a discounted rate when purchasing multiple modules.

“I thought it was an informative, easy to listen to presentation with a clear, very well put together workbook to complete. It fits in very well with what I'm currently doing, and has helped with my understanding of disciplinary procedures.”

Myra Cox
Office Manager, JBG Holdings

Bespoke Training for Your Business

We can design a training session specific to the requirements of your business or provide in-person training using our suite of training modules

Bespoke Training for Your Business

If you’d like a bespoke training session just for your business, we can help.

We can design a session specific to the requirements of your business, or give you a suite of training modules.

With our training, you’ll upskill and empower your team to tackle employment law issues head on – be that HR professionals, line managers or a senior leadership team. Our sessions are engaging, interactive and practical and can be delivered online or face-to-face.

Examples of recent bespoke training sessions include:

Senior leadership training on dealing with disciplinary and grievance investigations – their role and the issues they need to consider for a fair and reasonable investigation and outcome
Senior leadership training on equality and diversity issues – why it matters, where the issues arise, and what responsibilities they have to ensure proactive steps are taken to address these issues and increase diversity and inclusion in the workplace
A workshop for an HR team on specific topics, using case studies to unpick common obstacles and navigate their way through with confidence
A session for managers on restructures and redundancies – the basics of what they need to know about the process and consultation obligations to get it right and implement a fair and effective process
A half-day session for line managers covering the basics of HR and employment law, including disciplinaries, grievances, performance/absence management, discrimination, investigations and Employment Tribunal claims
A session for senior leaders on the basics of TUPE and entering into exit discussions with employees, including an overview of restrictive covenants.

Other topics could include any part of the employment cycle such as:

Understanding the importance of employee status
Absence management
Performance management
Conducting disciplinaries
Discrimination
TUPE
Unconscious bias.

We design our courses to meet your budget and specific training needs.

Find out more

“The approach was relaxed and informative, Jenny Arrowsmith [the trainer] broke the subjects up using a short quiz to engage with the group, and this worked really well.”

Tamsin Dunkerley
HR Director, Rotherham Hospice

“In support of our work on diversity and inclusion, we asked Jenny Arrowsmith to facilitate a session for our HR team on discrimination law and related tricky issues. She delivered an excellent and informative session, which helped the team feel more confident in how they could best support managers and casework. It was good value for money and definitely worth the team taking the time out to do this.”

Kate Reich
Head of People
(Health and Fundraising)
Sue Ryder

Employment Tribunal Training

Our mock tribunals make sure you're abreast of the procedure and understand how a decision is reached.

Employment Tribunal Training:
Mock Tribunals

Employment Tribunals can be costly, time consuming and stressful for those involved.

Our Employment Tribunal training will help your business understand what it needs to do to avoid expensive and time-consuming employment tribunal claims and prepare you for defending a claim if necessary.

We explain the procedure and the legal tests that a case must meet. We’ll talk about the common issues that arise and how you can avoid them.

You’ll then watch our employment solicitors performing a mock employment tribunal based on a typical case:

You’ll get a copy of the evidence in advance
You’ll see the witnesses give evidence and watch us cross-examine them
The Judge will retire and we’ll ask you to vote on who should win
The Judge will then deliver and explain their verdict.

At regular points, you can ask the judge and lawyers questions about the process, legal issues and the decision reached (no questions of the Judge during the hearing as we run it like a real hearing!).

It’s an engaging and interactive session. It’s especially relevant for those responsible for investigating or holding disciplinary and appeal hearings (i.e. those likely to be required as a witness when defending an unfair dismissal claim), including owner managers, HR managers and line managers.

By seeing and understanding exactly what happens in an employment tribunal, you’ll learn:

What your role is in the employment tribunal process
How your decisions will be scrutinised in a tribunal
What procedures you should adopt to stay legally compliant
When to seek legal or HR advice
How to prepare witnesses for the daunting experience of giving evidence.

We can deliver a full or half-day training session, depending on your requirements and are able to cover specific scenarios if you wish.

What Else Can We Help You With?

Find out about our other services for you and your business.

What Else Can We Help You With?

Whether it’s business or personal, we understand that everyone’s situation is different.

If you need legal advice or support with financial planning, we’re here to offer an expert hand with a human touch, so you’re able to focus on what really matters.

Find out more

* Financial planning and wealth management services are provided by IM Asset Management Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Its Financial Services Register Firm Reference Number is 402770.