A conversation with Julie Dalzell, senior associate in our employment team.
A conversation with Julie Dalzell, senior associate in our employment team.In this week’s blog I wanted to introduce you to one of our teams – our employment team and to do this I have asked Julie Dalzell, senior associate in our employment team a few questions about her work. Julie has been with Jacksons for 15 years and has a particular interest in advocacy and mediation services This is what she had to say.
1. What type of work does Jacksons employment service carry out for clients?
All areas of Employment support are covered including Tribunal advocacy, bespoke training for all levels of management responsible for HR, mediation, contract and policy drafting or review, telephone helpline and/or face to face support for all HR and legal issues arising in the workplace between employer and employee (sickness management, disciplinary, grievance, TUPE, industrial action, immigration, data protection, redundancy and restructuring, contract variation, the list goes on!) plus a unique form of insurance protection against claims.
2. Why do companies need to make sure they have policies in place for things like discipline and sickness? Isn’t this covered by legislation?
Having policies in place helps to guide and regulate the employment relationship. Written policies enable employers to provide employees with a set of standards and guidelines that will be applied in the relevant situation. This aids an employee’s understanding of what is expected of them and what they can expect from their employer in return in key situations that may arise during the employment relationship.
3. If a business is considering a restructuring how early should an employment lawyer be instructed?
From the outset! What issues need to be considered? The number of employees affected as this determines which legislation applies to the restructure and therefore the level of complexity in terms of the process the employer will be expected to follow. Whether the changes required can be achieved via changes to terms and conditions with a view to preserving jobs where possible, or a headcount reduction is required, or a mixture of the two.
4. What do you think is the best part of being an employment lawyer?
The opportunity to provide guidance and support to clients at what can be a stressful time and to build trust and establish long term relationships and the fact that employment law is ever changing and developing which makes for a great deal of variety in one’s day to day legal practice
5. Do you think that employers are now more flexible concerning part time working and job sharing?
I think that more employers now recognise the benefit of allowing women with families to return to some form of part time work or job share, or at the very least better understand their obligations to properly consider such requests, but I think that women remain disadvantaged in terms of career progression and pay by seeking such arrangements and this is because there is still a great deal of negative thinking amongst some employers as to the value provided by those working part time, or job sharing, versus their full time colleagues.
6. Do you see many issues concerning equal pay?
Equal pay is likely to play a much greater role for private sector employers than has previously been the case with the advent this year of the Gender Pay Gap Regulations which will require all employers with 250 employees or more to publish reports annually on the gender pay gap within their organisation. A report will have to be published on the organisation’s own website as well as on a government website. The effect of these regulations is likely to highlight sectors where there are significant gaps in pay between genders and thus make equal pay (and pay in general) a bigger issue for private sector employers than it has been in the past.
7. What exactly is a zero hours contract? Are they always a bad thing?
A zero hours contract is a type of contract where the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum number of hours of work and the worker is not obliged to accept any work offered. They have attracted a considerable amount of negative publicity because of the fact that some employers were offering this type of contract with an exclusivity clause so that the worker was not able to offer their services elsewhere whilst under contract thus losing the benefit of flexibility as to whether they accepted the work when it was offered to them. Exclusivity clauses were banned on 26 May 2015. Overall there remains concern that this and other types of casual worker arrangement that prevail in the so called GIG economy and other sectors such as care services do not provide the same standard of employment protection as permanent contracts of employment offer.
8. What do you think the impact of Brexit will be on our employment laws?
At this stage this remains very difficult to say but overall I do not foresee any significant erosion of the type of employment protections that employees and workers currently enjoy as and when we do exit EU membership since much of our existing employment legislation has its origins domestically, or has been enhanced beyond the requirements imposed on nation states by EU Directives.
These were my questions but if you have any questions for Julie then why not give her a call direct on 01642 356 510 or send her an email: jdalzell@jacksons-law.com . We are always happy to have an initial no obligation conversation.
