HR Expert, David Thompson, has joined Silverman Sherliker to head up Silverman Sherliker Specialist HR Services, a dedicated HR Specialist service

The service will provide front-line HR advice and resources to complement the legal services offered by the firm’s extremely busy employment team.  
 

Innovative Client Benefit

Senior Employment Partner, Nicholas Lakeland, explains how this innovative step will benefit clients:

“Silverman Sherliker can now provide an integrated and complete HR Service thus assisting clients with practical advice and on site assistance whilst also being able to offer Employment Law advice as and when required. Our HR consultants are available to undertake regular weekly or monthly first-line human resources support on a retained basis or to deal with on one-off projects as may be required.    The services are flexible and can readily be tailored tosuit a client’s requirements.”

A Wealth of Experience

During his 23 years HR career with Barclays Bank, Dave Thompson has acquired a wealth of hands-on HR experience in successfully dealing with contentious and non-contentious HR-related issues.  Dave progressed through the branch network to Operations Management where he quickly gained a reputation as an effective troubleshooter, turning negative situations around through a combination of re-motivating employees and bringing good disciplines to the workplace. From the London Regional HR team, he progressed to Employee Relations Manager in Barclays’ Head Office and also spent two years as a Project Manager for Employee Development and was responsible for implementing Recruitment & Assessment Centres. 

Dave explains the service that he now heads up at Silverman Sherliker Specialist HR Services :

“I am excited to be offering a seamless professional service to businesses of all sizes, backed by Silverman Sherliker’s legal expertise.  We offer a standard HR package to small, medium and larger employers.  Our range of services includes:
 
·        Absence Management
·        Guidance on issues involving incoming employment legislation
·        Assessment & Development Centres 
·        Avoiding Employment Tribunal Claims 
·        Disciplinary & Grievance procedures
·        Employee Attitude Surveys & Employee Relations
·        Managing line managers and personnel to improve attendance
·        Organisational, Employee and Management Development 
·        Record Keeping/Monitoring
·        Psychometric testing, CV and  reference verification  
·        Restructuring and Redundancy
·        Salary Reviews
·        Terms & Conditions of Employment
·        Training Team Leaders on employment related issues.”
 
For further information please contact Dave Thompson on dt@s2hr.co.uk  or Nicholas Lakeland on ncjl@s2hr.co.uk  or call +44 (0)20 7749 2700

As of Monday, injured feelings will cost UK employers a lot more!

Employees who are unfairly dismissed, particularly in discrimination cases, often get an ‘injury to feelings’ award.

The case establishing the principle was the well-known 2005 case of Vento -v- Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police.

There has been considerable debate since 2005 as to whether an ‘injury to feeling’ award should be index-linked to allow for inflation. Employment Lawyers have assumed they should be and their views have been confirmed in the Employment Appeal Tribunal case of Da’Bell -v- NSPCC which has just been decided in past 2 days.

The compensation bands for ‘injury to feelings’ award are now :

• lower band:     £ 6,000
• middle band:  £ 18,000
• upper band:    £ 30,000

So employers should be very careful not to upset anyone.

Conversely, if you do get fired…..make sure you are really upset about it!

This developmentshas significant ramifications, not just for those currently fighting tribunal claims but also for those who are advising on compromise agreements where an element of compensation is being ascribed to injury to feelings.

Clearly there is now a lot more to fight for!

As this judgment has been handed down, it has immediate effect despite the transcript not yet being available.

Employers should beware.

The compromise agreements they are currently handing out like confetti to departing employees may well not be valid, particularly if the Employee has not had proper independent legal advice.

Compromise agreements are part of everyday life for Employers in this era of mass redundancies because getting the Employee to sign one means that the termination payment is accepted in full and final settlement and the Employer cannot be sued later. In this sense they are there to protect the Employer.

However, one of the key requirements for a valid compromise agreement is that the Employee gets proper, independent legal advice from an independent solicitor. Section 203 of  The Employment Rights Act 1996 is quite specific. The compromise agreement must identify the independent adviser. The Employee must have received legal advice from a relevant independent adviser on the effect of the compromise agreement and the independent adviser must have a current contract of professional indemnity insurance, covering the risk of a claim against them by the Employee in respect of the advice. Further, the lawyer must certify that his firm is not acting for the Employer. So the statute is pretty clear and the independence of the Employee’s solicitor is a key factor in deciding whether the compromise agreement is valid.   In addition, no law firm should ever accept instructions if that would result in a conflict of interest.

What if the Employer ‘recommends’ the solicitor to which the Employee should go for advice on the compromise agreement or agrees only to pay the legal costs if the Employee uses that particular firm? What if that firm gets a constant stream of instructions on compromise agreements from the same Employer and is paid between £350 to £950 each time? Do you think that firm can be regarded as ‘independent’? Do you think that might give rise to a conflict of interest?

It is not surprising that such ‘recommended’ firms may well, in these circumstances, be reluctant to negotiate on the Employees behalf and are far too ready to accept that the first offer is the best offer available. They may be too keen to breeze through the compromise agreement or explain it in very general terms and seem keen to get Employees in and out through the door as quickly as possible.

Employers should therefore be very wary of providing Employees with a recommeded firm. At the very least the Employer should provide the Employee with a list of firms that can advise on comprmise agreements and the list should be a long list. We would suggest there should be at least 10 firms on the recommended list. The Employer should not say that they will only pay for the legal advice if given by either one or two named law firms and the Employee should always be told that they are free to take advice from any firm of their choosing. The practice of ‘bulk advice’ being given to departing Employees at the Employers premises on an appointed day is also likely to call into question whether the employee has truly been given independent legal advice as the law requires.

Employers should monitor how dependent one particular firm may become on the income generated by referred compromise agreements. This is particularly important for large Employers, where one law firm is used regularly and is earning substantial fees. Any law firm advising on a compromise agreement ultimately needs to be free to recommend that the Employee sue their Employer. If a law firm is regularly in receipt of a substantial fee income from that Employer they may well be reluctant to “rock the boat” by recommending further negotiations or litigation.

If the Employer tries too hard to control the manner in which the Employee receives independent advice, the compromise agreements may well be totally unenforceable and the Employer may find himself embroiled in litigation that he sought so hard to avoid.

For truly independent advice on compromise agreements visit Independent Advice on Your Compromise Agreement …..and always make sure that independent means just that.