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

Not anymore. Yesterday, Sir Michael Burton made a ground-breaking ruling in the UK Employment Tribunal that the claimant’s “green beliefs” deserved as much protection in the workplace as that accorded to religious views. 

But when does a belief become ‘a philosophical belief’ of the kind that may give rise to a discrimination claim?

Nick Lakeland was interviewed live recently on Candian Radio(the Dave Rutherford Show) and you can hear the entire interview  here.

Tim Nicholson claimed that he was unfairly made redundant from his position as Head of Sustainability at Grainger (apparently the UK’s largest residential landlord) and that he was discriminated against because of his beliefs about man-made climate change.

There seems little doubt that Mr Nicholson’s views were strong and sincerely held. He had changed his own life-style to fit his “green beliefs” by no longer travelling by air and also by making his home eco-friendly. He had lodged complaints about his employer flying an employee to Ireland and back just to pick up his BlackBerry that he had forgotten on a business trip and claimed that the firm had failed to execute its documented Green policies. On this basis, he alleged that he had been discriminated against unfairly.

Sir Michael Burton ruled that: “If a person can establish he holds a philosophical belief based on science as opposed, for example, religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection.”

He went on to say that, “a belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the Employment Equality(Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.”

Throughout the case  Grainger maintained its position that Mr Nicholson was fired because of “operation needs during a period of extraordinary market turbulence.”

This ruling is bound to encourage many more discrimination claims by employees who feel that they have been treated unfairly because of their ‘philosophical beliefs’. 

What is next one might ask? Protection for vegetarians, re-cycling fanatics, social networkers, conspiracy theorists, flat-earthers…perhaps even Jedi knights?

There is no financial limit to a compensation claim for discrimination on grounds of philosophical beliefs….Employers be warned!

This is a non-exhaustive 50 point checklist designed to help you avoid some very common legal pitfalls and maximise the legal security of your business.

1. Make sure that legal ownership assets used in the business are actually owned by the business.
2. Get written copyright assignments from designers, authors, software and web developers and appropriate warranties of originality.
3. Check the terms and conditions of third party suppliers of services to ensure you legally own any deliverables they create.
4. Do not rely on a terminable licence for key business assets; take an assignment or a perpetual royalty-free licence.
5. Always negotiate when taking or granting a licence (term, option to renew, notice period, warranties, conditions etc).
6. Make sure new shareholders assign the assets that they are bringing to the party to the business as a condition of the issue of their shares.
7. Check every name, trademark, slogan and design you use to ensure it does not infringe any third-party rights.
8. Do not use a name, slogan or logo without filing a registered trademark application.
9. Check the patentability of your inventions before disclosure or marketing.
10. Patent your novel inventions if patentable.
11. Register your designs as UK or EU Registered Designs.
12. Insist on non-disclosure agreements as prelude to deal negotiations.
13. When buying, consider milestone payments and a retention.
14. When buying, obtain contractual warranties and indemnities from sellers.
15. When buying, carry out as much due diligence as is possible.
16. When selling, get deferred payments guaranteed or secured.
17. Agree terms of ’soft’ loan capital up-front to avoid sudden repayment demands by investors.
18. Consider weighted voting rights for business founders who go below 50%.
19. Ensure shareholders, employees and consultants agree non-compete obligations.
20. Ensure post-termination non-competes are reasonable and enforceable.
21. Protect customer-base and goodwill by including non-solicitation obligations in employee contracts.
22. Protect investment in staff by including non-poaching obligations in employee contracts.
23. Impose strict confidentiality obligations on people involved in the business.
24. Ensure confidentiality obligations continue after termination of involvement.
25. Draw up an appropriate Shareholders Agreement for multiple shareholders.
26. Consider list of ‘reserved issues’ requiring unanimous shareholder consent to implement.
27. Do business under your own clearly-drafted standard terms and conditions of business.
28. Bring your terms and conditions to the attention of customers before they commit to buy.
29. Make share ownership by partners and staff subject to performance criteria.
30. Provide that employee shares vest over a reasonable period of time.
31. Make employee shares subject to sell-back obligation if they leave for any reason.
32. Provide a procedure for the fair valuation of shares of leaving employee.
33. Encourage employee loyalty by providing for nil value on share buy-back in first 2-3 years.
34. Consider discounted (or nil) value for shareholder employees dismissed for breach or wrongdoing.
35. Control the ability to sell the business by imposing ‘drag-along’ terms on minority shareholders.
36. Consider share purchase assurance to buy back shares of deceased shareholder from the estate.
37. Consider a contractual dispute resolution procedure to avoid dead-lock or formal proceedings.
38. Build business value by obtaining written contracts with customers and clients.
39. Consider minimum term commitments from customers and clients and long notice period.
40. Register under the Data Protection Act if applicable.
41. Negotiate favourable written agreements with all suppliers.
42. In supplier contracts, seek exclusivity, initial minimum term, renewal rights and long notice period.
43. When granting exclusivity ensure minimum performance criteria as a condition of such exclusivity.
44. Consider legal expenses insurance and After the Event Insurance when engaging in legal proceedings.
45. Ensure your business operates within its industry standards and applicable statutory framework.
46. Agree an appropriate Grievance and Disciplinary Procedure and stick to it.
47. Do not terminate any contract of employment without taking legal advice.
48. Never rely on a calculation or valuation carried out by accountants that are being instructed or paid by someone else.
49. Always seek a personal guarantee of payment or performance from principals of an SME business.
50. When dealing with a group of companies, seek guarantee of payment or performance by holding company.

              …..and never give anyone a signed, blank cheque.

 Email to discuss any of this: cjs@silvermansherliker.co.uk

Lots in the news today about everyone having to work longer before getting their State Pension.

Not entirely unexpected as the present Government has already laid plans to make us struggle at the coal face until men hit 66 and women 65.

But that was all before billions were paid to shore up our banking system and the next Government, of whatever hue, is going to have to deal with a massive black hole in the country’s finances. Pensions are one of the biggest problems (and don’t get me started on workplace pension schemes – a topic for another day!).

It was perhaps inevitable that the day of reckoning for state pension age was going to come sooner rather than later.

Ultimately, the one thing we all fear is an impoverished old age. Depending on the State to provide us with anything other than the most basic provision is simply unaffordable and the UK is not alone in facing what has been called the ‘demographic time bomb’. As medical knowledge improves, we are all living longer and someone has to pick up the tab for pensions having to keep us for perhaps 20 or 30 years AFTER we retire.

In 2005, Lord Turner (now the Chair of the Financial Services Authority) recommended to the Government that the state pension age has to rise if we are going to be able to provide any sort of half way decent pension. He has now been quoted as saying that if he was writing his report today, he would be suggesting a retirement age of 70 and that within the next 20 years or so. The word on the street is that he will be asked by a future Conservative Government to review the state pension system again. I’m not taking bets that he would move away from that position!

And the lesson to take away from all this? Don’t depend on the State to provide you with a comfortable old age. If you have access to a workplace pension (with all their faults) take it, especially if your employer is paying a contribution on your behalf. Failing that, start saving for that long rainy day…