Buyers Guide

buying fixed fee employment law and HR support services

If you are thinking about using the services of a fixed fee employment law and/or health & safety service provider then we strongly recommend that you do some homework first! There are plenty of service providers in the market place. Most have a great sales pitch and promise the earth. Sadly, few deliver!

As a starting point, we suggest that you read our short 'market overview' document.

what's so special about ward williams?

Ward Williams is an exclusive service in the UK market place. It provides an extremely high quality, professional, practical and pragmatic service. It stands head and shoulders above its nearest "regulatory consultancy" competitors in terms of quality of service. Don't just take our word for it...

Every year we carry out a client satisfaction survey. Our last survey was conducted in Spring 2007 and hundreds of clients responded. The results speak for themselves:

97% of clients/respondents rate the QUALITY OF ADVICE given by the employment support/HR team as GOOD or VERY GOOD.

97% of clients/respondents rate the EFFECTIVENESS OF ADVICE given by the employment support/HR team as GOOD or VERY GOOD.

91% of clients/respondents report that if their contract was to be up for renewal in the next 3 months they ARE LIKELY or WILL renew their contract with us.

94% of clients/respondents report that they would recommend another business to ourselves.

92% of clients/respondents describe the COST of the service as either FAIR, GOOD or EXCELLENT value for money.

Overall 93% of clients/respondents report that they are either SATISFIED or VERY SATISFIED with Ward Williams.

The quality of the service is as good (or better)than that provided by the best firms of UK solicitors - but with the advantages of fixed fees, payment of compensation/defence costs, training, provision of precedent documents and more.

Find out more about our Employment law and HR services.

questions & answers

We hope that the following Questions & Answers will give you a little more insight in to what makes us so special:

Q. Is quality of advice and service excellence important to you?

A. Every regulatory consultancy firm and every firm of solicitors promises both first class advice and a commitment to service excellence! How do you decide if the promises reflect the reality?

At Ward Williams:

Your dedicated lawyer will either be a UK solicitor or be otherwise qualified by legal examination, with a minimum qualification of a law degree (LLB) and more than 2 years (normally much more!) relevant experience;

We set service standards and define the time periods for completing your contracts and handbooks;

We are pro-active and (if you do not contact us) we will contact you on a regular basis;

Every year we will ask you to score each of our lawyers with whom you deal against criteria such as “speed of response” and “quality of advice”. Each of our lawyers must achieve certain minimum ratings and we build ongoing improvement into our staff appraisal process; and

We apply the quality standards and ethics of the law firm to our business.

Q. If there is an employment dispute, who will represent you at Employment Tribunal?

A. If you end up at Employment Tribunal you want to have the best possible representation. Most of our competitors will send inexperienced lawyers and/or non-qualified 'consultants' to represent you!

At Ward Williams, if there is an employment dispute, your dedicated lawyer will fight the case for you. He/she is the best possible person to do so having been involved with the dispute from the outset. Your file will not be passed on from a faceless telephone adviser to a factory advocacy team. At Ward Williams, if your case proceeds to an Employment Tribunal your lawyer will either deal with the hearing him/herself or instruct an expert employment law barrister to represent you.

Q. If you lose an Employment Tribunal Claim, how good is the legal expenses insurance policy? Will it pay out?

A. Some of our competitors do not put in place an independent insurance policy in your name. Some have a very high excess! Others have very close commercial ties to their “insurers”. Beware those that offer a "guarantee" and bend over backwards to avoid reference to the word "insurance" at all!

Through our relationship with ESP, we work with and enjoy an excellent relationship with the UK’s leading provider of commercial employment protection insurance. ESP are directly authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority and can 'place'insurance cover with ANY leading insurer they feel meet the needs and best interests of our clients. If you join Ward Williams HR, as part of our standard service, ESP will place a professional employment protection insurance policy to cover your costs of legal representation and compensation. Provided you take our advice, claims against you will always be covered and paid! As we say, unlike many of our competitors, we are directly authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Q. Who will be your main point of contact for day to day advice?

A. Many of our competitors provide call centre advice! We will allocate a team of 7 specialist lawyers to look after your business and you are free to choose whom, out of that team, you best get on with and can request this person(s). That person(s) is, of course, supported by others in your team but you will build a close working relationship with your lawyer and he/she will quickly learn to understand your business, its challenges and objectives.

Q. What sort of help and advice will you get?

A. Many of our competitors offer telephone advice only. At Ward Williams HR, as well as giving you telephone advice and support, we will email advice to you and we will draft relevant letters and documents for you. We do everything that you would expect a leading firm of employment law solicitors to do for you – and much more.

Q.Is advice that we give restrictive, negative or unnecessarily cautious?

A. Such accusations are regularly made against most of our competitors! We are different. We don’t simply recite the law to you. Our aim is to understand your business objectives and to give you the right advice to achieve your specific objectives.

Q. How will you access precedent letters, your contracts of employment and Employee Handbook documents?

A. When you join Ward Williams HR we will give you access to a secure section of our website from which you can read, amend and print out all of your employment documents, contracts of employment and employee handbook.

Q. How will we keep your contracts of employment, employee handbook and health & safety documents up to date?

A. We will review and update both as necessary to reflect changes in law and best practice. We will then upload the latest versions to your section of our website! This means no more clumsy exchanges of hard copy drafts or costly reviews and rewrites of inflexible documents by your solicitor. Your contracts and handbook will always be up to date!

Q.You currently use a firm of solicitors for your employment law and HR issues. Why should you join Ward Williams HR?

A. We provide at least the same (but usually better!) fast, practical and pragmatic advice that you might reasonably expect to receive from a leading firm of specialist employment law solicitors. However, unlike most firms of solicitors:

• You can call us as often as you want and we will not charge you a penny extra. No ticking clock every time you pick up the phone! You pay the same fixed price every month.

• We will draft and update your contracts of employment as necessary as part of our standard service.

• We will draft and update your Employee Handbook as necessary as part of our standard service.

• If an Employment Tribunal claim is made against you the claim is defended as part of our standard service. You will not get an extra bill for several thousand pounds (win or lose) just for defending the claim.

• If compensation is awarded against you, as part of our standard service, it is paid on your behalf - up to £100,000 per claim or £1,000,000 per client per annum!

• We provide you with a bank of employment/HR related letters and forms for your day to day use as part of our standard service.

• We will provide you with practical updates every month, by email.

• We will invite you to at least two free practical employment law training seminars each year.

Q. What sort of training and support do you provide?

A. We are in the business of risk management. It is in both our best interests to make sure that you and your staff keep up to date with relevant law and that key staff know how to implement it. As part of our standard service we will provide regular plain English updates and regional training. Unlike most of our competitors, our training courses are not an excuse for a sales pitch! Please take time to read some testimonials.

Q. Are there any other benefits in joining Ward Williams HR?

A. Lots! Over the years that we work with you we will become one of your main points of contact for professional help. We aim to provide holistic corporate support. This means that we work with trusted third parties to offer additional benefits and services to our clients. Please ask for details of those current offers available to new clients.

Find out more about Ward Williams Employment law and HR services.

We hope that you will choose to join us!