Protecting Your Business: Employment Law - Ayesha Casely-Hayford скачать в хорошем качестве

Protecting Your Business: Employment Law - Ayesha Casely-Hayford

“Protecting Your Business” - Presented by Ayesha Casely-Hayford : An Employment Law Workshop by Wainwright & Cummins Solicitors LLP. Hosted by The Brixton BID On 15th September 2016, we gave an early-bird breakfast workshop for members of the Brixton BID (small businesses and start-ups). We were located at Pop Brixton - “a community project, event space, and home to a community of independent retailers, restaurants, street food startups and social enterprises”. The topic of the workshop was “protecting your business”. When it comes to protecting your business there is no ultimate or easy answer, and definitely no quick fixes. The best lessons (in life and business) are learnt through experience. Having said that, there is a basic level of foresight and anticipation, when it comes to employment relations, that all businesses should have. With that I refer to large as well as small businesses that may have one employee, or perhaps none, but are hoping to grow. This involves well drafted contracts, which include exit strategies relevant to your business. For example the length of notice period required (a more senior employee may need a longer notice period, to enable sufficient handover - but no more than a month might be enough for someone in a relatively administrative role). A garden leave clause, to keep the employee away from work but not working for a competitor, may be what’s needed to protect your business interests. What about including restrictive covenants to secure data on customer connections? If this falls into the hands of a competitor it may seriously damage your competitive edge in the industry. In our “protecting your business” workshop we covered an analysis of what a business might want to protect and what they can actually protect in law. We discussed practical steps and tips for protecting information and building trust with staff. We also spent quite a bit of time talking about restrictive covenants. Restrictive covenants are a complicated area. They are restraints of trade and by their very nature they interfere with individual rights: “it is the right of every person to struggle for their existence”. We have an interest as a society in every person carrying out their trade freely. As a business you need to justify and explain what you are protecting and the reasonableness of any enforcement. For each business, the circumstances will be different and what is considered reasonable will be true only in the case in question. We used real life examples - including a Michael Jackson impersonation case that happened this year - to look at the moral and legal principles that underpin this complex area of law. This was our first time meeting some of the local Brixton businesses. From gift shop owners, to web designers to food suppliers. Understanding our client and their business is the key to providing a service that can make a positive difference, give effective support, and deliver on the highest level. On the same day as our workshop, 15th September, in the US, a federal Appeals Court ruled that employers can ban deadlocks at work. It considers that the choice of hairstyle is a mutable characteristic of race (a choice) and therefore to control and dictate hairstyles at work, cannot be discriminatory. This shows a gross misunderstanding of afro hair! Wearing locs is not only as the lawyers argued “a manner of wearing the hair that is physiologically and culturally associated with people of African descent.” It is a safe way to care for afro textured hair. This case is highly controversial and it shows how sensitive the working environment can be as well as the power it can have over the individual. Crucially, it shows the importance of understanding each other. We hope to meet many more local businesses over the year, and understand them to the best of our abilities, in this way we achieve success. The secret of success? “We’re working together; that’s the secret” - Sam Walton.