I was asked to speak at the Law Society of Scotland’s In-House Lawyers’ Conference on Friday.  The theme of this year’s event was ‘Risk & Compliance’.  This got me thinking about the role of the employment lawyer in advising employers.  For me, there was a real resonance with the theme of risk management. 

The modern role of employment lawyer has become much more about assessing and managing risk than when I first started out as an employment lawyer in the 1990s.  At that time,…

Dealing with a difficult conversation with an employee is perhaps the most daunting aspect of managing people at work.  A common gripe of the HR community is that line managers will often try to pull HR in to deal with it for them or, worse still, managers will duck the issue altogether.  Experience has shown that the problem doesn’t miraculously just go away and often it will fester and get worse.

The other week, I worked with the guys at…

As part of Social Media Week Glasgow, Burness LLP will host the very first offline meet up of the Employment Law for Human Resources in Scotland (ELHR) LinkedIn group.

The ELHR group is made up of over 500 HR professionals who embrace the use of social media and use the group to engage and network…

I’m sure that you’ve heard of ‘the elevator pitch’.  In fact, it was used as an interview technique in the final of BBC’s The Apprentice last night.  Ask someone to sum up their business proposition or what they do for a living in the time that it would take to go up to their floor in a lift.  It’s a good idea to have something mentally prepared for impromptu networking opportunities.

I had a variation on the theme the other day when my three-year-old son asked me about my job.  Now…

Involve Me and I Learn

Lawyers in private practice (out-house as we are sometimes described) have long been criticised for dispensing advice from the ivory tower of a lawyer’s office, removed from the real world of their clients’ businesses and the pressures which they face.  Now, my office in the Aurora Building in Glasgow is neither ivory, nor would I describe it as a tower - at least…

Having come through a challenging industrial relations “climate” over recent months, commentators were quick to point to a “winter of discontent”.  Trade disputes were widely reported in BA, the rail sector and the Royal Mail, to name but a few, and we can probably expect more as the public sector cuts begin to take hold.

But what is seldom reported is that trade union membership and density (particularly in the private sector) has actually been in decline in recent years. And only…

You might have seen that the Government is considering increasing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims from one year to two years.  There is no timetable yet for any decision to be announced and the suggestion has created a stir in the legal and HR press.

I was in judicial mediation in London for an employer client the other week.  This is a service which the Employment Tribunal Service offers as an alternative to the more adversarial claims process.  I am not sure that the Tribunals are actively promoting this service. A research study following the pilot scheme showed that, while judicial mediation was viewed as a successful process, it did not appear to save the Employment Tribunal Service a great deal in time or money.  That may not be a…