Employer Helpline for UK Businesses

When to call us first

• Before you suspend, dismiss, or change someone's terms, because those steps are hard to unwind.
• When an employee raises a grievance, a whistleblowing concern, or an allegation involving a protected characteristic.
• When you receive an ACAS early conciliation notification or an ET1 claim form, where the response deadline is 28 days.
• When you are buying, selling or outsourcing part of the business and TUPE may apply.
• When absence, performance or capability has stopped improving despite informal conversations.

What to have ready

1. Start date, job title and continuous service length for each employee involved.
2. The written contract and the relevant handbook policy.
3. A short chronology of what happened, with dates.
4. Any correspondence already sent, including emails and messages.
5. Your commercial objective: resolve and retain, exit safely, or defend a claim.

Callers who bring those five things usually get a firm answer in one call rather than three. Where we need more, we tell you exactly what to gather and when to come back.

How our routing works

The qualifier above routes you in one step, so you are not repeating your situation to three people. Retainer clients also get out-of-hours cover and named advisors who already know the business.

Advice line, retainer or one-off project

• Advice line only: unlimited telephone and email advice, best for employers with an internal HR contact who need a second opinion.
• Full retainer: advice plus documentation, contracts, handbook maintenance, and hands-on case management, priced per employee.
• Project work: a single redundancy programme, TUPE transfer, restructure or tribunal defence, quoted as a fixed fee.
• Whichever route you take, ask what is excluded. Tribunal representation and insurance backing are the two exclusions that catch employers out.