Protection from experts
We offer an Employment Support Retainer on a fixed cost monthly retainer to help your business avoid claims but to defend those that cannot be avoided. Under the retainer, we give you a ‘health check’ and get your contracts and policies up to date and support you with expert advice from experienced and qualified professionals to protect and guide you through the complexity of employment and HR issues.
You may have experience of telephone help lines and employment law services from large commercial providers, where you need help but the adviser is from junior, unqualified, inexperienced staff and, even if you get to speak to their team manager, the advice is “no, you can’t do that” and you are no further forward.
“Direct and to the point. Jackson Osborne have saved us many thousands of pounds in dealing with issues that other providers were afraid of and didn’t have the skill to tackle.”
Robert Humphries, Managing Director B.A.S. International
You won’t find that with us. Our objective is to help you to exercise your employer’s rights and to run your business effectively.
If an employee doesn’t see sense and still wants to make a claim, we can support and represent you all the way to full defence at trial if necessary, and without further cost or impact on your balance sheet.
The monthly retainer cost will vary depending on factors such as the nature of your business, number of employees, staffing costs and identification of issues needing particular involvement. However, it can work out to be as little as £1 per employee per week or £100 per month.
Cover against legal costs and compensation
Backing up our retainer, insurance is available to cover legal costs and compensation awards in event of any claim. There is no ‘reasonable prospects’ clause allowing cover to be declined on the basis of an insurer’s self-interested opinion that the employee is likely to win. The basic principle with us is that if you follow our advice you will be covered and your balance sheet protected.
You take care to lock your doors and windows and to install an alarm system to protect your business against fire and theft. And you protect against loss by buying insurance in case those safeguards don’t work. But the chances of a suffering loss via Employment Tribunal claim are far greater. What protection do you have against that?
How would the balance sheet for your business, or its owners or directors personally, cope with unexpected costs of unplanned for and expensive employment dispute?
Now that Employment Tribunal fees have been abolished again, the number of Employment Tribunal claims being issued has shot back up, with a new claim being issued on average once every 5 minutes. It doesn’t cost them anything and it takes just one disgruntled employee to cause your business a lot of grief.
The maximum unfair dismissal award is now £102,194 (a total of year’s basic salary up to £86,444 plus a ‘basic award’ based on age and length of service of up to £15,750). For many claims, such as discrimination and whistleblowing, there is no ceiling. That is a fact that many employers discover to their very serious cost.
Even if you have done nothing wrong, solicitors’ and barristers’ costs in defending a dispute are no small matter, typically being between £2,000 and £5,000 per day. You don’t need that.
“Just brilliant! Thank you as always.”
Clare Bacchus, Director
Call us to discuss the cost for your business.