There are a number of different types of individuals and entities offering HR advice to employers. These include; individual HR consultants, HR Consultancy companies and Solicitors.
HR is complicated and to do it properly requires a detailed knowledge of employment law. Successful employee cases in the Employment Tribunal often comes off the back of unwise HR decisions.
There is no distinction between legal and non legal work when it comes to HR. Every aspect of HR is employment law.
Any workplace issue such as a grievance, sickness issue, disciplinary etc is always governed by employment law and there are many areas where it can go wrong. Using an employment lawyer reduces these risks.
Dealing with HR issues causes a significant drain on management time. Using an employment lawyer reduces risk and frees up time.
One of the little known benefits of using a solicitor is that all of your communications with us are confidential as they are covered by “legal privilege”. This is not the case with HR advisers and HR Consultancies.
Employers often believe that all communications with HR Advisers are confidential and do not have to be disclosed. This is not the case and this is a major drawback of using an HR Advisor or Consultant rather than a solicitor. HR consultants are not able to claim “legal privilege” as they are not solicitors. It is now very common for an employee to make a Subject Access Request (GDPR) from their employer.
In this request an employee is entitled to see any emails or other documents which contain their personal data. This would include advice provided by an HR Consultant.
This can be extremely problematic for an employer as very often your discussions with HR are the last thing that you would want an employee to see
More often than ever employees are raising Subject Access Requests in which they can request all data containing their personal information. Access to your discussions with your HR advisers is often not something you would want your employee to see.
