A member of the UK's Magic Circle of leading law firms, Allen & Overy is widely considered to be one of the world's elite law firms, advising national and multinational corporations, financial institutions, and governments. At Allen & Overy, our people are our strongest and most important asset. We pride ourselves on recruiting only the very best and it is that basic principle which forms the foundation of our success, a success that I am very proud to play a part in. The employee relations team deal with all levels of employee relations issues allowing our HR colleagues in the line to concentrate on providing support to managers on strategic, transformational and organisational development activities. Put simply, I love being an ER Manager at Allen & Overy. I have a diverse client group, supporting both the Banking fee earning teams as well as Support Services, meaning that I have to tailor my approach to the way that my clients work. My responsibilities include the investigation and case management of disciplinaries and grievances, hands-on performance and sickness absence management, policy development and training. I feel strongly that happy and healthy people are productive people and it is this that drives me to work closely with our people managers to quickly nip problems in the bud as soon as they arise, by providing fast and accurate support and advice.In addition to my daily responsibilities, A&O also encourage me to collaborate with others in, and make a wider contribution to, A&O, its reputation and the community. Since joining the firm, I have really thrown myself into the firms communities activities. In recent months I worked with a key pro-bono client of the firm, facilitating two strategic planning meetings and a meeting with the Senior Management team to discuss difficult issues such as negative staff culture, redundancies and serious financial problems. I also played a key role on professional development days for Dress for Success.

As one of the world’s leading law firms, Herbert Smith advise many of the biggest and most ambitious organisations across all major regions of the globe. The London office provides a distinctive blend of transactional, dispute resolution and projects capabilities to clients, working closely with offices worldwide. I was delighted to secure a fixed term contract with such a leading law firm and benefited significantly from exposure to/leading on key Recruitment, ER, Reward, Inductions, Reporting and Operational HR (bonus / salary review / performance management), activities.

Gateley is a full service national law firm that promotes the commercial interests of companies, individuals and organisations. At the time of my hire, Gateley had just acquired the Halliwells commercial team in Manchester, making it an especially exciting time to join. It was foreseen that combining the strengths of both firms would provide a formidable national commercial legal practice for the benefit of clients and staff. This role required a hands-on, practical approach to HR, strong stakeholder management skills and a commercial outlook as the HR focus was very much on adding value to the ever expanding business. I truly loved the generalist nature of this role and two days were never the same. My responsibilities included careful change management, supporting with the harmonisation of terms and conditions, the management of sickness absence, payroll, recruitment and employee relations, including performance management and redundancy.