At Kerseys our solicitors in Suffolk & Essex assist clients with employment law services for individuals, and also businesses, on a wide range of employment matters.
We use our expertise and experience to ensure that we provide high quality and cost-effective employment law advice and services to all of our clients.
We offer expert and practical employment advise to individuals on a broad spectrum of matters including raising a grievance, defending a disciplinary allegation and negotiating an exit package.
Employment Law for Businesses - Click Here
We are experts at resolving disputes through dispute resolution and resolving issues for you by means of negotiation, arbitration, mediation, litigation or a combination of these methods.
We can help you with all of your employment needs.
Contact us now to speak with one of our legal experts.
It is legislation that governs employer and employee relationships, including trade unions. Many of the laws look to outline and protects UK worker’s rights and employee’s rights.
There are 3 main types of employment status under the law:
It covers a wide range of issues relating to the work environment and processes. Here are some examples of what’s covered by employment law—including:
You can see the pricing and services for Unfair or Wrongful Dismissal for Individuals here.
It is a dismissal that is done so in breach of contract. For example where an employer dismisses an employee usually for gross misconduct and refuses to pay the employee the notice pay and benefits that the employee would have received had the employer not dismissed the employee for gross misconduct.
Wrongful dismissal claims are also often brought in connection with constructive unfair dismissal claims. This is where the employee resigns with immediate effect in response to the employer’s fundamental breach of the contract of employment. Under such circumstances, the employee has no alternative other than to resign with immediate effect. As such, the employee is prevented from working their notice and receiving the benefits for that period.
An employee may pursue a claim for unfair dismissal where they have been dismissed by their employer and who, in most cases, has the requisite two years’ qualifying period of service. The qualifying period does not apply in most cases where the dismissal is for an automatically unfair reason such as whistleblowing or the dismissal is linked to discrimination.
There are circumstances in which an employee who meets the qualifying criteria may not be able to pursue a claim, such as for example, where the employee does not have the legal right to work in the UK or they are out of time to bring a claim.
Early Conciliation is a process offered by ACAS to allow potential Claimants and employers to try and settle a dispute before Employment Tribunal proceedings are issued.
If you reach an agreement during the conciliation period you can settle your claim by using a COT3 form. If you are unable to settle your claim then your (or the employer) can bring the conciliation to an end and you will receive an Early Conciliation Certificate.
Instigating early Conciliation through ACAS is now a mandatory step that an individual must take before issuing an Employment Tribunal claim. You will need to lodge a form with ACAS and obtain and Early Conciliation Certificate before you can commence an Employment Tribunal claim.
Both are written agreements that you and your employer can use to settle workplace claims.
A Settlement Agreement can be used to settle workplace disputes and is found in legislation. As part of the settlement you will agree to give up some or all of your legal rights against your employer. Because you are giving up such a fundamental right you will need to take advice from an independent solicitor. The solicitor will review the Settlement Agreement and liaise with you to ensure that you understand its content and the effect of it. They may also liaise with your employer to try to resolve any queries or concerns that you may have.
A COT3 does the same thing as a settlement agreement but it can only be used if you reach a settlement through ACAS. This is most commonly the case where a claim has been or is about to be made at the Employment Tribunal. If you use a COT3 agreement you will not need to take advice from an independent solicitor, although it is advisable to do so.
A Settlement Agreement is used to protect employers by stopping employees from bringing legal claims against them. It is a contract between an individual and their employer by which the individual contracts out of some or all of their legal rights.
Settlement Agreements are often used by employers when they terminate an employee’s employment. They will usually involve the employer paying a compensation payment to the employee in exchange for the employer getting the peace of mind from knowing that the employee is giving up their right to make a claim against them.
For a Settlement Agreement to be binding you must take legal advice on the terms and the effect of the Agreement. Once signed a Settlement Agreement is almost impossible to unravel, even if it turns out to be a bad deal. So, it is essential that you take the very best advice, which is where we can help. We have advised on hundreds of Settlement Agreements, from the simplest of agreements to the most complex arrangements at director level.
We will assess your potential claims against your employer and advise you on whether you are getting what you deserve.
Your employer will often not give you their best offer first time and any offer presented to you will often not be set in stone. We can help you renegotiate the terms to make sure that you are properly compensated and that your interests are well protected.
No – we will communicate by email and telephone with your employer and you to receive a copy of the draft Agreement and arrange a telephone/video call with you to review it. We are required by law to carry out an identity check on you which we perform online for a small additional fee.
Our charges are very reasonable and we can tailor them to your needs and to the work that you would like us to do.
In most cases we will agree a fixed fee for your Settlement Agreement, so that you have the comfort of knowing in advance what our fee will be. In the vast majority of cases your employer will pay most or all of your legal fees for taking advice on your Settlement Agreement.
From April 2024, all workers aged 21 and over are legally entitled to at least £11.44 per hour.
They are the same thing but the National Living Wage is the title the government has given to the highest tier of the National Minimum Wage for those workers who are 21 and over.
We can act for you under a legal expenses insurance policy, which usually cover employment disputes. This sort of policy is often included with, or attached to, household insurance policies.
From 6 April 2021, new legislation will amend the current formula for PENP to avoid unfair outcomes if an employee’s pay period is defined in months but their contractual notice period is expressed in weeks. The changes will apply to those individuals who have their employment terminated and where the termination payment is received on or after 6 April 2021.
From 6 April 2024 Statutory sick pay will increase from £109.40 to £116.75 per week. You can claim SSP on the fourth day you are off sick from work. Your employer may have a sick pay scheme and for information on this you should check your contract of employment however the minimum pay is £116.75 per week.
You can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you and your partner. You can check when you and your partner can take your leave and how much statutory pay you will get using the Shared Parental Leave and Pay planning tool
From 7 April 2024 Shared parental pay will increase from £172.48 to £184.03 per week or 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
Much of the answer will lie in whether the employer has a contractual right to claw back training costs when an employee leaves. If there is no contractual right to claw back the training costs then an employer will be unable to recover the monies. In this situation an employer may try to deduct the costs from the employees’ salary whilst working their notice. This runs an increased risk of the employee making a claim of unlawful deduction of wages or indeed if the claw back that the employer made brings the employees’ salary under the national minimum wage, the employee can have a claim for non-payment of the national minimum wage.
However, even though an employer inserted a claw back clause in the employees’ contract of employment in an attempt to recoup on their investment, should an employee leave shortly after completing training or before completing the training, the employer needs to be careful that the clause is carefully drafted so as not to amount to a penalty clause. A penalty clause is a clause that can be construed as a punishment. As such, a penalty clause will not be enforceable by the employer.
In 2017 the government introduced the Apprenticeship Levy which is a tax on employers with a pay bill in excess of £3m. Those employers who pay the levy are able to access funding for apprenticeships and training. However, employers are unable to recover the levy from the apprentice if either the training terminates early or the apprentice leaves employment.
So what can an employer do when an employee leaves employment either during or shortly after the employer has invested in training for that employee?
For employers, it is important to have the contractual right to claw back training costs. However, the employer needs to ensure that the drafting of such repayment clauses are such that they are not deemed to be “extravagant and unconscionable”. The employer must make certain:-
• There is a sliding scale of repayments whereby an amount to be repaid by the employee reduces depending on the length of time that has passed between the completion of the course and the employee leaving employment;
• Allow the contractual right to deduct such training fees from the employees’ wages or notice pay;
• To have an obligation on the employee to repay the training fees at a reasonable level;
• After a certain period of time no such repayment by the employee is required.
With regard to National Minimum Wage, there is the concern that the employee would have a claim should the deduction from the notice pay make the employee fall below the National Minimum Wage requirement. Case law has clarified the position as to whether the employee would have a claim that where an employee resigns or is guilty of misconduct which results in the seeking of the repayment of the training fees by the employer, then such a deduction will not have to be considered for National Minimum Wage purposes.
If, however, the employer was to make the employee redundant and such a deduction would result in the employee receiving less than the National Minimum Wage, the deduction would then be taken into account.
The employer should also ensure that any such agreement for the repayment of training fees is entered into with the employee prior to the commencement of the training.
Subscribe Now for Newsletter and Updates
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_zcsr_tmp | Zoho - This cookie is necessary for the login function on the website. | |
bcookie | 2 years | This cookie is set by linkedIn. The purpose of the cookie is to enable LinkedIn functionalities on the page. |
collect_chat_launcher_load | 1 month | This cookie is set by the provider Collect.chat. This cookie is used for enabling the chat function on the website. |
collect_chat_page_load | 1 month | This cookie is set by the provider Collect.chat. This cookie is used for optimizing the chat-box functionality by recognising the user. |
kerseys-_zldp | 1 year | This cookie identifies the unique visitors for the website, www.kerseys.co.uk for Zoho Live Chat functionality. |
kerseys-_zldt | 1 day | This cookie identifies unique visits for a visitor in the website, www.kerseys.co.uk for Zoho Live Chat functionality. |
lang | This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website. | |
lidc | 1 day | This cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing. |
ypsession | 1 day | For Yumpu PDF viewer. |
yumpu_slc | 7 days | PDF viewer |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_ga | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. |
_gat_UA-46814924-1 | 1 minute | This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. |
_gid | 1 day | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visted in an anonymous form. |
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | 30 minutes | This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. |
_hjFirstSeen | 30 minutes | This is set by Hotjar to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. |
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample | 30 minutes | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit. |
_hjTLDTest | session | When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. |
vuid | 2 years | This domain of this cookie is owned by Vimeo. This cookie is used by vimeo to collect tracking information. It sets a unique ID to embed videos to the website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_fbp | 3 months | This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website. |
AVPUID | 1 year | imagazine.advertserve.com Used to identify the visitor across visits and devices. This allows the website to present the visitor with relevant advertisement - The service is provided by third party advertisement hubs, which facilitate real-time bidding for advertisers. |
b3e783bb62 | This cookie is set by the provider Zoho. This cookie is used for collecting information on user interaction with the web-campaign content. This cookie helps the website owners to promote products and events on the CRM-campaign-platform. | |
bscookie | 2 years | This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by Linked share Buttons and ad tags. |
fr | 3 months | The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. |
MUID | 1 year 24 days | Used by Microsoft as a unique identifier. The cookie is set by embedded Microsoft scripts. The purpose of this cookie is to synchronize the ID across many different Microsoft domains to enable user tracking. |
NID | 6 months | This cookie is used to a profile based on user's interest and display personalized ads to the users. |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |
UserMatchHistory | 1 month | Linkedin - Used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor's preferences. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_hjid | 1 year | This cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. |
AnalyticsSyncHistory | 1 month | No description |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 1 year | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 1 year | No description |
S | 1 hour | No description |