We have thirty people, no HR function, and a performance problem nobody wants to be the one to handle.
Employment risk in a growing business is almost always a process problem, not a legal one. We run the process, contracts, policies, the difficult conversations and the exits, so it is done properly and once. Almost every claim that succeeds against a business of this size succeeds on procedure rather than on merits: the decision was defensible and the way it was reached was not. That is an unusually cheap risk to remove, because the fix is a sequence somebody follows rather than an argument somebody wins.
Dinmore Bell provides an outsourced employment function for businesses without in-house HR: contracts and handbooks, the day-to-day questions a manager cannot answer, disciplinary and grievance processes run properly, restructures and exits. Employment tribunal advocacy is conducted by instructed specialists whom Dinmore Bell prepares, coordinates and controls.
How we own it
The paperwork that prevents the problem
Contracts, handbook, policies, right-to-work, restrictive covenants that would actually hold. Written for how you operate, not copied from a template. A template contract is usually wrong in three specific ways: the notice periods do not match what the business would actually want at a senior level, the covenants are too wide to be enforceable and too vague to be useful, and the contract says nothing about ownership of work product, which matters more each year. The handbook does a different job. It is the document that says what the process will be, and it is the document a tribunal reads when deciding whether the process was followed. Kept current and actually applied, it is the cheapest protection a business of this size can buy.
The question a manager cannot answer
Most employment work is not a dispute. It is a manager with a question at four in the afternoon: can I refuse this holiday request, does this count as a grievance, what do I say to somebody who has told me they are pregnant, can I change these shift patterns, am I allowed to ask about that. Left unanswered, those questions get resolved by guesswork and the guesses accumulate into a pattern that looks, later, like a policy nobody wrote. We take the questions directly from the managers, answer them the same day, and record the answers so the same question is not asked three different ways in three different departments.
Live matters
Grievances, disciplinaries, performance management, sickness, TUPE on an acquisition. We run the sequence and draft every letter. That means the invitation letter with the right notice and the right rights, the investigation done by somebody who will not then decide, the hearing minuted, the outcome letter that gives reasons, and the appeal offered and heard by somebody more senior. None of it is difficult. All of it is what goes wrong when a business runs the process from memory while also trying to trade. Where a matter is heading for a settlement rather than an outcome, we say so early, because the cost of a process nobody intended to finish is the most avoidable cost in this area.
Sickness, absence and the long-term case
Long-term sickness is where well-intentioned employers get into the most difficulty, because the instinct is to wait. Waiting is not a neutral act: it builds an expectation, it makes the eventual decision look abrupt, and it does nothing to establish the medical position. The sequence that works is unexciting. Keep contact at an agreed frequency, get proper occupational health input rather than a GP note, consider adjustments explicitly and record why each one was or was not made, and hold a formal capability meeting when the evidence supports one. Done that way, a difficult decision is defensible. Done by waiting, it usually is not.
Restructures and redundancy
A redundancy process has a shape, and the shape is not optional: a genuine redundancy situation, a defined pool, objective selection criteria applied to real evidence, individual consultation that could actually change the outcome, and a search for alternative employment that is more than a formality. Above twenty proposed dismissals at one establishment, collective consultation obligations and their timetable bite as well, and getting the timetable wrong is expensive in a way that is entirely mechanical. We design the process, set the calendar, write the scripts and the letters, and sit behind the managers who have to hold the meetings.
TUPE, and the deal nobody told us about
TUPE arrives in two ways: an acquisition, or the loss or win of an outsourced contract. In both cases obligations attach to information and consultation well before completion, and in both cases the commercial team has usually agreed a timetable that does not accommodate them. We identify early whether there is a transfer at all, which is the question that decides everything else, then run the employee liability information, the measures letters and the consultation, and make sure the sale or service agreement allocates the risk rather than leaving it where it lands.
Exits
Settlement agreements, negotiated departures, senior separations. Handled quietly, with the commercial objective set first. The order matters: decide what the business needs, which is usually a clean end, confidentiality, an agreed reference and protection of the client relationships, then work out what that is worth and only then start the conversation. Starting with a number is how a departure becomes a negotiation about the number. Senior exits carry more moving parts, shares and options, notice and garden leave, board resignations, announcements, and they are best run as a single co-ordinated sequence rather than as four separate conversations with four different advisers.
What this costs, and where the specialists come in
A fixed monthly retainer covering the contracts, the policies, the manager questions and the live matters, scoped on a call rather than quoted by the hour. The predictable objection is that a business of thirty people cannot justify it. The comparison to make is against what the same business currently spends in unplanned instructions when something goes wrong, plus the management time that goes into running a process badly. Tribunal advocacy, and any matter that needs a barrister, is conducted by instructed specialists whom we prepare, brief and control, which keeps that spend scoped rather than open-ended.
Where specialists come in
Employment tribunal advocacy is conducted by instructed specialists. We prepare, coordinate and control the instruction; we do not appear.
Related results
All results →Sectors we run this for
Related insights
All insights →The letter before action, and what it actually buys you
Most disputes are settled by the quality of the first letter, not by the threat at the end of it.
What a fully loaded General Counsel actually costs
The comparison is not our fee against an hourly rate. It is our fee against the hire you would otherwise make.
- We have thirty people and no HR. Where should we start?
- With the contracts and the handbook, because everything else refers back to them, and with a single route for managers to ask questions. Those two things remove most of the risk in a business this size before any individual matter is dealt with.
- Do you replace an HR manager or work alongside one?
- Both arrangements are common. Where there is no HR function we run it. Where there is one, we take the matters that carry legal consequence and leave recruitment, culture and day-to-day people management where they belong.
- Can you represent us at an employment tribunal?
- Tribunal advocacy is conducted by instructed specialists. Dinmore Bell prepares the case, manages the evidence and the witnesses, briefs the advocate and controls the cost, which is where most of the difference in outcome and in spend is made.
- How quickly can you turn around a disciplinary?
- The invitation and the process plan usually the same day the matter is raised. The process itself runs to a timetable set by the seriousness of the allegation and the need to investigate properly, and compressing that is the most common cause of a good decision becoming an unfair one.
- Are our restrictive covenants enforceable?
- Often not as drafted, because they were copied from a precedent written for a different role. A covenant has to be no wider than necessary to protect a legitimate interest, judged when the contract was made, which means the covenant for a salesperson and the covenant for a director should not be the same paragraph.
- What is the real cost of getting a dismissal wrong?
- The award is only part of it. The larger costs are the management time, the effect on the rest of the team while it runs, and the fact that an unresolved process usually ends in a settlement anyway, at a worse number than the one available at the start.
- Do you handle right-to-work and sponsorship compliance?
- We run right-to-work checking and the record-keeping that goes with it, and keep the file in the state an audit would require. Immigration applications and sponsor licence work are handled by instructed specialists whom we coordinate.
- We employ people in the UK and the UAE. Can you cover both?
- Yes. Running one employment function across both is a core part of what Dinmore Bell does, including making sure the contracts in each place reflect the law that will actually govern them rather than a single template issued twice.