Employment contracts

Our specialist employment-law solicitors support co-operatives and mutuals to ensure their employment contracts and internal policies and procedures comply with legislation.

Having well drafted and comprehensive employment contracts and internal policies and procedures is an efficient way of safeguarding your organisation from employees making a claim against you – making them the most important legally binding documents between an employer and an employee.

When drafting employment contracts and internal policies and procedures it is imperative that they are written in a clear and easy-to-understand way, to prevent them being left open to interpretation and potentially putting your organisation at risk from receiving claims from employees. Where staff are involved in ownership or membership, this is particularly important to get right.

Clear employment contracts, and internal policies and procedures are equally important for employees and employers and ensure that both parties understand their obligations. These documents should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure they remain relevant and comply with changes to employment law, within the organisation and sector-specific regulations and requirements.

At Anthony Collins Solicitors our specialist employment-law team supports co-operatives and mutuals to draft clear employment contracts, and internal policies and procedures to ensure the smooth running of day-to-day operations and help safeguard the organisation from employees making a claim against you.

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 in partnership with many co-operatives and mutuals 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.
• Joint contracts.
• Zero hour contracts.
• Sickness absence.
• Maternity, paternity, shared-parental and adoption leave.
• Equal opportunities.
• Health and safety policy.