Employment Contract Impact

It’s commonplace for Stone King’s Employment Team to advise employers on how to reach an agreement. This process will usually involve a negotiation with a prospective, current or former member of staff. There are many ways to negotiate and in this team we know that there are different ways to approach a negotiation depending on what you want to get out of it. For example, sometimes, an employer just wants to pay the least money possible and the negotiation strategy is built around that. Sometimes, however, the employer has other things on their mind. In these situations, Stone King works hard with clients to deliver impact that is not just about hitting the financial bottom line but about greater wellbeing.

For example, we acted in a case for a client where an individual alleged she had been sexually harassed by her boss. Some of the conduct was admitted and we and the employer knew that she had genuine grounds. Therefore, instead of issuing a flat denial on behalf of the employer we built into our negotiation strategy recognition of this injury and in doing so moved all parties towards a settlement agreement that was perceived by the parties to be fair to all. This approach helped achieve closure.

Some employment disputes lend themselves to mediation. We acted for a personal assistant who alleged disability discrimination against a household name company CEO. She alleged she had been marginalised and responsibilities removed without justification. Crushingly for the family, she was terminally ill so was fighting the case, not for her own benefit, but for the benefit of her children. We held a mediation in which we sought to protect her in the final months of her life but also sought to achieve a settlement that would enable her to implement her wishes for her family. This effectively required a “cessation of hostilities” with the other party to the litigation and by approaching the matter with this mindset, we achieved more for the client and her family than a traditional zero/sum approach could have got near to achieving.