Specialist employment advice for franchisors and franchise networks
Employment issues are one of the most challenging risk areas in franchising. Franchisors and franchisees must carefully manage workforce arrangements to protect the brand, avoid unintended liabilities and maintain compliant franchise systems.
We help you put in place clear, consistent and compliant processes that support your brand standards while recognising the independence of franchisees. Our advice is grounded in a strong understanding of how franchise networks operate in practice, enabling us to deliver solutions that are both legally robust and commercially workable.
Our Employment Team has hands‑on experience advising within franchise networks and works closely with our franchising and dispute resolution specialists to provide clear, commercial and pragmatic advice.
At every stage, we support you in managing workplace issues and reducing risk. This includes advising on employment disputes, handling Tribunal claims, and guiding you through sensitive matters such as disciplinary processes, grievances and redundancies. We also provide practical advice on settlement agreements to help achieve efficient and commercially sensible outcomes.
Key services
We can help support franchisors or franchisees with:
- Employment status and worker classification risks
- Drafting and reviewing employment contracts and workplace policies and procedures
- TUPE and business transfers
- Day-to-day HR issues, disciplinary, grievance and dismissal issues
- Managing workforce risk across franchise networks
- Enforcing post-termination restrictions and protecting confidential information
- Joint employer and vicarious liability concerns
- Employment disputes and tribunal claims
- Advising on, drafting and negotiating settlement agreements
Our integrated team works closely with our business and disputes specialists to ensure consistent advice across commercial and workforce considerations.
Work highlights of our team
- Advising a well-known brand in the industry on a wide range of employment matters in the context of a restructure including advice on managing redundancy processes, management of performance of employees and potential employment disputes
- Advising and enforcing post-termination restrictive covenants against a franchisor’s former employee seeking to join a competing franchise network and misuse of confidential information
- Representing a domiciliary care franchisor in defending employment tribunal claims incorrectly brought against them by franchisee-employed staff, including clarifying employment status
- Advising clients on tribunal claims and TUPE processes including on resales of franchises
- Advising franchisor on managing employees and TUPE when they ‘stepped in’ to take back a franchise business.
