Business reorganisation

This topic considers the employment-related legal and practical issues that may arise when an employer reorganises the structure of its business and how to manage the interaction between them.

Implementing a business reorganisation—employment issues

A number of employment law issues arise when a business wants to implement a reorganisation. The various issues are both legal and practical and how to manage the interaction between them can be challenging.

In practice, businesses will often take calculated risks on short-cutting the relevant legal processes, perhaps to save time or by a degree of reverse engineering to achieve a desired outcome.

The exercise should be approached from the start as one that may be subject to legal challenge. This means that until the point a final decision has been taken on the new structure, all documents created for the purposes of planning the re-structure should be marked draft, and at a point in the process where a proposal has been reached, they should be marked 'subject to consultation'.

Once the business has a preferred new structure, usually from a range of options that have been considered, the following employment law issues

To view the latest version of this document and thousands of others like it, sign-in with LexisNexis or register for a free trial.

TAKE A FREE TRIAL

Latest Employment News

EHRC to update legal guidance after watershed sex ruling

Law360: The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is making moves to update legal guidance on single-sex spaces following a ruling on 16 April 2025 by the UK Supreme Court that the legal definition of sex in anti-discrimination law covers only biological sex amid calls to update critical legislation.

Employer Bulletin: April 2025

HMRC has published the April 2025 issue of the Employer Bulletin, providing important updates and information relevant to employers and agents.

Employment weekly highlights—17 April 2025

This edition of Employment weekly highlights includes: (1) an ET claim over a military reservists right not to be subjected to a detriment under the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, (2) the closure of the Cabinet Office consultation on reforms to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, (3) commentary from Dr Michael Foran, University of Glasgow, and Joanne Moseley, Irwin Mitchell LLP on the Supreme Court decision that the words ‘sex’, ‘woman’ and ‘man’ under the Equality Act 2010 mean biological sex, biological woman and biological man, (4) an analysis of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance on anonymisation and pseudonymisation by Alex Jameson and Steph Ong of Bird & Bird, (5) the temporary closure of the Manchester ET office at Alexandra House, (6) the publication of the Practice Directions on the presentation of claims, responses and statutory appeals which take effect from 21 May 2025, (7) updated guidance from the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary on the use of artificial intelligence (AI), (8) the IRLR highlights for May 2025, (9) dates for your diary, and (10) other news items of interest to employment practitioners.

Presidents of the ETs confirm implementation of Practice Directions on the Presentation of claims, responses and statutory appeals

Employment analysis: The President of the Employment Tribunals in England and Wales, Judge Barry Clarke and the President of the Employment Tribunals in Scotland, Susan Walker KC have sent a joint letter to members of the employment tribunal national user group in relation to a number of matters, most notably the implementation of the Practice Directions on the Presentation of claims, responses and statutory appeals (PDs on claims and responses) from 00:00:01 on 21 May 2025. The letter also covers the release of functionality that enables unrepresented respondents to submit digital applications via the Citizen portal to the Employment Tribunals, a special joint national user group meeting for both employment tribunal jurisdictions on digital practices including the use of the MyHMCTS and Citizen portals, and recording of employment tribunal hearings.