Offering sabbaticals to workers can be a viable option for businesses seeking to alleviate overstaffing issues without making redundancies - but the legal side of the process needs to be handled carefully.

A recent court ruling has highlighted the importance for businesses of reviewing their responsibilities when issuing employment contracts to foreign workers.

Short-time working can help businesses to make savings without reducing their overall number of staff - but only if proper consideration has been given to the associated legal complexities.

Businesses and workers should both be aware of the laws that exist to provide employee inventors with a share of the profits they generate for their employers with their inventions.

There are several forms that flexible working may take, and bosses need to be aware of their obligations to provide flexible opportunities for staff.

Employers have a primary duty in law to protect their employees from harm, and could face severe penalties if they fail to meet their health and safety requirements.

Whistle blowers are afforded significant protections under UK employment law, so businesses need to ensure they are aware of and compliant with this legislation.

Since the abolition of the statutory default retirement age, it has become incumbent upon employers seeking to compel the retirement of employees who reach a prescribed age to justify the rationale for choosing that age, lest they fall foul of anti-discrimination laws.

Any company seeking to terminate a senior executive will need to deal with potentially complex legal issues that must be successfully resolved in order to remain compliant with UK employment law.

A recent ruling has highlighted the importance of clarifying whether workers who bank a certain amount of flexi-hours should be able to exchange these hours for cash or another benefit upon the termination of their contract.