Practical Legal Updates
1. Is ‘Hybrid Working’ the answer?
Mixing office working with other locations, as well as offering flexibility on working hours, seems to be the way forward as the attractiveness of hybrid working is becoming widely accepted. If you’re doing this, you’ll need to understand your business needs when it comes to physical team presence, recognise staff concerns so they can be addressed up front, and then allow enough time for planning/ adjustment. As a starting point, consider:
- How will you frame and implement your policy?
- Will changes need to be made to employment contracts?
- How will it affect your data security and data protection policies?
- And what about health & safety?
- If people are to be based overseas, have you considered tax and local employment law implications?
Check out our blog for more guidance or get in touch if you want to discuss how we can help implement these changes. We also helped Hubble with the following blogs that you may find useful:
What Are The Legal Implications of ‘Work from Anywhere’ Policies?
What Should I Know if My Team Works Abroad?
2. Hiring & Firing Staff: Top Tips
LegalEdge’s Nick Pritchett joined an expert panel recently to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of hiring and firing staff. You can catch the full recording here or to make life easier we’ve summarised the top tips in our blog. If you have any questions, would like to discuss options or need help please get in touch.
3. Is your IP protected?
Protecting IP is key. It might feel like a distraction and/ or a low priority/ high expense when you’re in start-up mode, but it can make all the difference when fundraising. Too often we come across a company being held to ransom because IP ownership, including for source code, wasn’t dealt with in contracts with staff/ developers. Or a company is forced to do an expensive rebrand because they didn’t secure a trade mark before launching.
See our full blog for more detail on how to protect your tech IP. Or, get in touch for help with your IP strategy to ensure you safeguard your brand and reputation as you grow.
4. Do you need an EU Rep?
We get asked this question a lot so we’ve pulled together a list of FAQs here to help you work out if you need to appoint one. But in short, organisations outside the EU/ EEA that are selling goods or services in the EU (or that regularly monitor the activities of individuals there) need to appoint an EU/ EEA Representative.
If you need help with your data protection strategy or making sure you comply with the relevant data protection laws in the countries where you operate get in touch.
5. Do you need a Data Protection Officer?
Under the UK GDPR you may be required to appoint a DPO if you regularly process data on a large scale or process ‘special category’ data.
But how do you work out in practice if this applies to you? Here’s our blog which answers some commonly asked questions and demystifies the role. And if you want to discuss any of your data protection requirements, including whether you need a DPO, please get in touch.
6. New laws about Cookies AGAIN
It was announced recently that, as part of a post-Brexit revamp, the UK will scrap cookie requests and relax parts of the EU’s GDPR legislation in a bid to cut the red tape around data (finally!). For the moment it’s a case of carry on as normal, but we’ll keep you posted on any new requirements and developments as and when they happen.
We’re here to support you and your business – if you want to discuss any of the above or anything else please get in touch – send an email or give us a call.
