Supporting housing organisations with employment contracts and policies

Our specialist employment-law solicitors advise organisations to ensure their employment contracts and internal policies and procedures comply with legislation, and are appropriate, effective and that they are kept up to date regarding changes to employment law and sector-specific regulations.

Employment contracts and internal policies and procedures are the most important pieces of legally binding documentation that exist between an employer and an employee. Well-drafted and comprehensive employment contracts and internal policies and procedures are one of the most effective ways to safeguard your organisation from employees making a claim against you. It is imperative that employment contracts and internal policies and procedures are drafted in a clear and easy to understand manner in order to reduce the risk of them being open to interpretation and potentially leave your organisation open to claims.

Clear employment contracts and internal policies and procedures ensure that both employers and employees know where they stand and should be reviewed regularly to ensure they are still relevant and comply with changes to employment law, changes within the organisation and sector-specific regulations and requirements.

At Anthony Collins Solicitors, our experienced employment-law team can support your organisation to draft clear employment contracts and internal policies and procedures to ensure the smooth running of day-to-day operations.

Internal policies provide a framework within which an organisation makes choices about how it operates. They can help the organisation with decision making and provide a clear pathway of actions that should be taken in the event of a breach of contract or internal policy. Organisations may have policies on any number of topics, for example:

• Employment
• Finance
• Premises
• Confidentiality
• Diversity
• Risk management
• Service delivery
• Training
• Volunteer involvement.

Our employment contracts and internal policies and procedures service

We work with a number of organisations across multiple sectors to ensure that their employment contracts and internal policies and procedures are drafted in a clear and comprehensive manner, are tailored to the specific requirements of the organisation and take into consideration the sector specific legislation and regulations.

Our experienced employment solicitors can advise on all aspects of employment contracts and internal policies and procedures, including:

• directors’ Service Agreements;
• consultancy Agreements;
• contracts of employment, including secondment and joint-employment contracts;
• discrimination, bullying and harassment policies;
• disciplinary and grievance procedures;
• data protection and confidentiality procedures;
• restrictive covenants;
• staff handbooks and rules for employees;
• sector-specific regulations, such as night-working contracts;
• joint contracts;
• zero-hour contracts;
• sickness absence;
• maternity/paternity, shared-parental and adoption leave;
• equal opportunities; and
• health and safety policy.

Our solicitors are passionate about delivering expert legal advice to support your organisation to achieve a successful resolution to your legal issues.  Our advice is practical, clear and we work with our clients to guide them through every step of the legal process. Our experienced teams have extensive sector knowledge and experience to assist organisations through periods of uncertainty, change and difficulty.

If you would like further information about employment contracts and internal policies and procedures or how our employment law team can help you, please get in touch.

Provisions within the Housing and Planning Act that remove the need for housing associations (“HAs”) to obtain consent from the Regulator to dispose of social housing (as well as to merge or enter new group structures) come into force on 6 April.

Such freedoms will allow HAs greater flexibility over how they use their assets and, potentially, how they structure their businesses. Our expert panel gathered to discuss the possible opportunities the deregulatory measures offer, together with the likely hurdles. Read the outcome of their discussion here.