Until now, the general approach has been that a company cannot claim privilege against its own...
Sometimes employers need some extra support.
HR consultancy support for disciplinary and grievance investigations and hearings
Employers can be faced with complex and involved grievance and disciplinary issues or may need assistance with managing a restructuring programme.
We can assist with this by organising and undertaking disciplinary and grievance investigations with our HR Consultancy partners. We can also put HR Consultancy partners in place to deal with the disciplinary or appeal hearings themselves.
HR Consultants can be particularly useful in relation to the investigation of disciplinary matters.
The ACAS code states “It is important to carry out the necessary investigation of potential disciplinary matters without unreasonable delay to establish the facts of the case. In some cases, it will require a holding investigatory meeting with the employee before proceeding to a disciplinary hearing. In others the investigatory stage will be the collation of evidence by the employer who use it to attend disciplinary hearings. In misconduct cases were practicable different people should carry out the investigation than in a disciplinary hearing.”
In small organisations there might not be anybody sufficiently experienced to handle the investigation stage. The investigator should also ideally not be a key witness in the case. That is where we can help by providing a HR Consultant.
HR consultancy support for redundancies
Our HR consultants can be based at the employer’s premises and can also help to manage restructuring/redundancy programmes to ease the burden. The assistance can involve attendance at collective and individual consultation meetings.
How George Green LLP can help with HR consultancy support
If management teams are busy and do not have time to get involved in HR matters we are able to provide the resources to resolve matters simply, quickly, efficiently, effectively and within budget.
The benefit of doing this through George Green is that at each stage the HR Consultant’s work is monitored and supervised by our lawyers to ensure high quality. Further if correspondence in relation to the HR Consultant’s role is conducted via ourselves this will be subject to legal advice privilege. One down side of instructing HR Consultants directly for employers is that all correspondence with them is likely to have to be in the event of an employment dispute.