Labour and employment law portfolio
Labour and employment law classics
Litigation
We represent our clients on all levels of jurisdiction of the labour courts, before public authorities and in arbitration boards.
Consulting
We advise corporate groups and medium-sized companies as well as start-ups. Our range of advisory services covers the entire spectrum of labour and employment law:
- Anti-discrimination
- Drafting of employment contracts
- Separation agreements
- Foreign assignments of employees
- Occupational health management
- Works constitution law, works agreements
- Operational changes, transfer of undertakings
- Temporary work
- Management consulting
- Reconciliation of interests and social plan
- Termination of employment contracts
- Co-determination / conciliation bodies
- Outsourcing
- Staff reduction
- Policies
- Post-Merger Integration
- Reorganisation
- Collective bargaining law/collective agreements
- Vacation claims
- Remuneration models
International
Due to our many years of activity in the leading international employment law networks, we have contacts to top-class foreign experts and can put together teams for international projects for our clients at any time. We advise foreign companies on their German activities and German companies on labour and employment law issues with an international dimension.
Employment law 4.0
New work and workplace 4.0: Solutions for flexible working conditions
Digitalization is forcing companies to adapt to the challenges and opportunities of the digital world. New Work describes the working world of the future and offers a concept for a new way of working with more freedom, self-determination and participation in the community. New Work expresses the development away from rigid working models towards the flexible value-added processes of the working world 4.0.
The term working 4.0 encompasses this process of change in the working world into the digital age. This process requires corresponding changes in the internal regulatory / legal framework, which we are designing for our clients:
- Flexible working time models
- Flexibilization of the places of work
- Design of flexible cooperation models
- Participative organizational models, holocracy
- Agile working methods
- Performance management and feedback culture
New thoughts on employee representation
The Works Constitution Act contains rigid regulations which are sometimes unsuitable in practice for modern companies and start-ups in particular. Alternative employee representation offers an opportunity to develop employee representation rights tailored to the company. We advise companies on the development of tailor-made flexible employee representation models for greater self-determination and employee participation in new organizational structures within the confinements of the existing laws.
Change management
The world of work is changing at an unprecedented speed as a result of digitalization; operational changes have long since developed form a temporary challenge to a permanent topic. Dealing with change processes has therefore become one of the most important management tasks in HR. The successful implementation of operational changes is always to be understood as a comprehensive change process, in which a mere reconciliation of interests and a social plan are no longer sufficient. Therefore, we accompany our clients throughout the entire change process in the application of current change management tools and innovation methods such as Design Thinking, Scrum, Kanban & Co, Working Out Loud, Gamification, as well as separation and retention management.
Internal investigations
We are particularly specialized in the subject areas of sexual harassment and anti-discrimination. Due to the large number of proceedings we have successfully advised, we are the most renowned consultants in Germany in this field.
Especially in the area of sexual harassment, companies face considerable challenges: What can you do if you as an employer are suddenly confronted with a case of sexual harassment by an employee and you stand word against word? Where is the line to be drawn between flirting, unwanted approaching and harassment? How do you move between the conflicting priorities of presumption of innocence and victim protection? As a result, employers often find themselves wedged between a rock and a hard place. In addition to the real, if non-legal threat of damage to their reputation, it also creates an increased liability risk. We navigate companies safely through this area of conflict, including but not limited to conducting the necessary internal investigations, supporting the necessary communication between all parties involved and defend the employer’s corresponding employment law measures.
Trainings
Inhouse trainings
We offer in-house training courses, which we take as an opportunity to share our passion for the topic while informing our clients and their employees on the legal framework and practical aspects of labour and employment law. We offer trainings in all areas of labour and employment law and tailor the content of our training and type of presentation to the needs of our clients; from classic half-day or full-day PowerPoint presentations to Socratic methods or our preferred method of storytelling training.
Workshops
We also organize and moderate workshops on special topics. In the workshop format, we offer our clients an intensive discussion in which we not only pass on our knowledge in legal theory, but also practically develop specific solutions for the relevant questions together with the workshop participants. For example, we work with our clients towards:
- Recruiting processes to avoid bias and discrimination
- Strategies for negotiations with the works council
- Concepts for change processes
- Setting-up of processes for internal investigations into suspected serious breaches of duty such as sexual harassment or pecuniary offences at the employer’s expense
- Concepts for performance and talent management
- Conflict solutions
