As an HR consultant you are in a position where you are effectively giving legal advice to clients, and where you are drafting legal documents in the form of contracts, agreements and letters, which you intend to protect and advance their position, but you are not a lawyer.
You are also entering into contracts with clients yourself and may be reliant on the terms within those agreements in the event of a dispute or to protect your own position.
As a business owner you may have other legal obligations with regard to company registration, insurances, accounts or similar.
This can all be a daunting prospect for someone starting out on their own as an HR consultant. Are you sure the documents you are drafting for clients are completely up to date and offer the best legal protection for them? Are you confident that the advice you give about the law is accurate and up to date? Do you have proper terms of business which take into account the nature of the services you will be providing? Are you fully aware of all the legal obligations surrounding the business you have started?
It’s really important to us that all our consultants can confidently answer “yes” to all the above questions, and this is how we make sure they can:
- We offer bespoke training to new consultants, a key part of which is employment law training, especially for those who are less confident in this area.
- We ensure consultants are kept completely up to date with legal developments affecting them and their clients.
- We provide consultants with template contracts and other agreements, including the more complex agreements such as directors’ service agreements and settlement agreements. These are regularly reviewed to ensure they are completely up to date and in line with best practice, as well as being drafted with a view to being easily understood and followed by small business clients.
- We provide consultants with terms of business and retained HR services agreements for use with their clients which have been specifically professionally drafted for our use on a bespoke basis, taking into account the services we provide, and the specific nature of the risks involved in those services.
- We provide guidance to HR consultants starting their own business for the first time including information about legal requirements for that business, what legal format is best for their business. We provide ongoing support with the ins and outs of running a business, including reviewing any agreement our consultants may be considering entering into as a business owner (for example for office space), to ensure they are fully aware of the implications of the agreement.
It’s important to us that our consultants don’t feel in the dark about any of the legal aspects of running their consultancy, and feel confident to go out there, run their business effectively and successfully, and provide a high quality service to their clients.
If you’re interested in talking to us about becoming a partner with face2faceHR, do get in touch.