As a small business you may find yourself requiring legal advice but if you have no internal HR team, it can be difficult to know who to turn to. In this blog, Centric HR will discuss whether HR consultants can give legal advice as well as much more.
So, can HR consultants give legal advice? HR consultants can provide general legal advice but it is not covered by legal privilege. This means that, if called upon, the legal advice would have to be disclosed in court.
Keep reading to find out more about what services HR consultants can offer and how legal and HR work together.
HR consultants are responsible for a variety of tasks such as performance management and personal coaching but they can also provide general legal advice relating to employment law. Often HR consultants work closely with solicitors when issues arise relating to employment law because they have expert knowledge that solicitors can rely on.
What’s more, HR consultants are very useful when it comes to advising clients on how to implement changes, procedures or complete certain paperwork that is required after legal disputes. This is particularly handy for clients who have not handled a legal issue before or clients that have no internal HR.
It is important to note that HR consultants are not covered by legal privilege. In short, this means that if a subject access request has been submitted, the information can be released to anyone, including the court. Therefore, HR consultants need to be sure that the advice they are providing is accurate and follows current regulations.
To read more about how HR consultants deal with employment law, take a read of our informative blog that details the benefits of employment law.
HR consultants deliver a variety of services to businesses of all sizes to aid them in the running of their business. Ranging from people strategies to attraction and attention, we have detailed some of the main services that HR consultants provide below.
| People strategies | A HR consultant will support you in developing an effective people strategy that is bespoke to your organisation. This will focus around hiring, training and development and even employee retention. |
| Attraction and retention | A HR consultant will provide your business with specific support on how to attract and retain your ideal employees. This can relate to the hiring process, interviews and onboarding processes. |
| Workforce efficiency and planning | A HR consultant can help you to review your existing planning processes and determine whether it can be improved in any areas in order to be cost effective. |
| Employee engagement | HR consultants can help you to review and grow an effective employee engagement strategy that keeps your employees motivated towards the role. |
| Culture and values development | HR consultants can help you to implement employee engagement workshops, surveys and other activities that help to develop a strong culture in your business. |
There are many other services that HR consultants can provide so to read more about them, take a read of our recent blog that details why you should use a HR consultant.
HR and legal work together to maintain the well-being of employees through HR regulations. As such, they work together to assess legal risks and other indicators that suggest a potential employment law claim may be raised. For example, whilst a lawyer is continuously assessing the risk of lawsuits arising, HR will conduct surveys, interviews and take written complaints. When combined, these two perspectives can help businesses to manage employment law disputes effectively.
Employment law is a very important governing factor within HR because it is the metric on which treating employees fairly is assessed on. Employment laws protect both the employee and employer because it allows for both sides to have regulatory information on how they should treat each other. This also helps with ensuring that employees are treated fairly in times of sickness, pregnancy, bereavement.
Without employment law it would be quite hard for HR workers to manage the well-being of their employees effectively and fairly. There would be little guidance on managing disputes and employee retention would massively reduce because employees would not feel valued by their employers. Therefore, it is very important that lawyers play a handson role in working with HR workers.
Centric HR is a team of experienced HR professionals based in Staffordshire and Birmingham, offering a variety of HR services for small to large businesses including HR outsourcing and HR consultancy. Get in touch today to talk to us more about how we can support you with an employment law dispute.
