Settlement Agreements for Employers
When disputes arise with employees it can increase the risk of a claim or, in the case of dismissal or redundancy, an employee may complain about the way you have dealt with the matter.
An effective way to minimise the risk of a claim is to offer your employee a Settlement Agreement in which employees waive their rights to bring legal proceedings against you and your company. From a business perspective it provides surety that you will not have to spend time and money dealing with litigation and can be a quick and effective solution to dealing with difficult employees.
Sometimes there is no dispute or you just haven’t got round to having a difficult conversation.
In these cases it is possible to have a ‘protected conversation’ with your employee with a view to ending employment on an amicable terms which is then recorded in a Settlement Agreement. It’s important to understand that not all conversations are protected, for example, if your employee has a complaint about discrimination. Equally, you must not put your employee under any undue pressure to accept a Settlement.
We have extensive experience in drafting and overseeing the process of presenting your employee with a Settlement Agreement including advising you on protected conversations, contractual and compensatory payments, tax implications, protecting your business after your employees leaves and, importantly, ensuring the agreement is validly signed and legally binding. As is our ethos at ACUMEN BUSINESS LAW, this is done as a fixed fee so you know how much the process will cost at the outset.
Your employee will be required to take the Settlement Agreement to a solicitor of their choosing for independent legal advice. It’s standard practice for you, as employer, to cover the costs of this advice and we can agree to put a cap on any costs.
Please get in touch if you have an employee dispute or are considering offering a Settlement Agreement and we can advise you on the most practical and efficient way of dealing with it.
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