Sectors
Religious Organisations
For the past 15 years, WorkNest has assisted all manner of religious organisations with people management and health and safety compliance.
Whether you are a church, mosque, synagogue or other place of worship, our tailored, people-focused approach provides much-needed support to faith-based organisations across the UK.
We understand the need for cultural sensitivity when dealing with employment matters, and the need to find practical solutions to health and safety risks.
With our unique combination of sector knowledge and specialist expertise, we are perfectly placed to help you simplify your employment responsibilities and strengthen your health and safety risk management, so that you can improve your claims defensibility, safeguard your reputation, and focus on serving your community.
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How we help
Specialist advice and support for Christian, Catholic, Islamic and other religious organisations
Places of worship are also workplaces. As such, they are bound by employment law and health and safety regulations. We understand that very few faith-based organisations have access to in-house support in these areas, which can lead to outdated practices, accidents and other costly mistakes.
At WorkNest, we understand that managing your legal responsibilities can feel overwhelming. Our job is to help you stay on top of your duties, overcome employee obstacles, and maintain a safe environment for staff and worshippers through:
- Helpful, experienced advice from named professionals, whenever you need it
- Support with essential documentation, including policies, contracts and handbooks
- All the tools, templates and guidance you need to make people management and compliance more manageable
And with fixed fees, you can lean on us as often as you need with complete peace of mind over cost.
Related resources
Experts in Employment Law & HR
Managing people in line with the law can be complex and time-consuming. Are you confident that your contracts are compliant? Are you often unsure how to approach difficult employee matters? Are you worried about the consequences of getting it wrong?
With support from your own small team of dedicated, qualified experts, we can help your religious organisation to:
- Cut through the complexities of church employment law with straightforward, jargon-free advice
- Bring your policies, procedures and practices up to date with the latest legal requirements
- Manage employee matters quickly and compliantly, from complicated issues such as discrimination to more common issues around conduct and performance
- Proactively protect your organisation against financial and reputational risk
- Minimise disruption and keep employees engaged, motivated and working towards your collective goals
Plus, if you encounter a particularly complicated or sensitive issue, we also offer on-site HR consultancy services for more hands-on support.
Experts in Health & Safety
Health and safety legislation applies to places of worship, as it does to any other public building, and leaders of religious organisations are responsible for ensuring compliance.
If you struggle to give health and safety the time it deserves and are worried you might be falling short of requirements, WorkNest can:
- Fulfil the role of one your competent persons, as required under health and safety law
- Offer friendly, collaborative, solutions-focused support from a named Health & Safety consultant who not only understands risk management but your environment and culture
- Work with you to identify practical solutions that mitigate risk whilst also being appropriate to your religious setting
- Assess and help you to manage common risks such as fire, old and borrowed buildings, and vulnerable people
- Provide you with a tailored church health and safety policy setting out your arrangements for keeping employees, volunteers and visitors safe
- Help to strengthen your claims defensibility and give you confidence in your compliance.
Crucially, we are not here to find fault; our goal is to work with you to ensure you are providing a safe environment, meeting your responsibilities and fulfilling your duty of care.
Explore our Employment Law and Health & Safety Services
Discover more about how our services could support your organisation
24/7 unlimited support from your dedicated advisers
Whichever service you use, our highly qualified advice teams will form the bedrock of your relationship with WorkNest. You get named advisers, ensuring the support and advice you get remains consistent and from people who understand your business.
Employment Law Advice
Fast, pragmatic, commercial. Our Employment Law and HR advice line gives you and your managers access to truly unlimited advice on all of your people-related challenges, from the seemingly straightforward to the most complex.
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Health & Safety Advice
Need a steer on risk assessment, help unpacking legislation, or guidance on your COVID controls? With our unlimited advice line support, you can relieve the pressures of regulatory compliance and dramatically reduce risk.
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Best practice documents, personalised for you
Your Employment Law and Health & Safety advisers will work with you to create compliant, best practice contracts, policies and handbooks that meet the specific needs of your organisation.
Employment Contracts and Handbooks
Whether you have nothing in place or just need an expert review, our Employment Law specialists can carefully craft your employment contracts and employee handbooks to guarantee compliance and provide the flexibility you need as an employer.
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Health & Safety Policies and Handbooks
Whether you’ve got nothing in place or are in need of an expert review, our Health & Safety specialists can provide you with a policy and handbook tailored to your organisation, processes, activities and environment.
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Control your financial risk with our Legal Expenses Insurance
With the amount and cost of claims rising, and new risks emerging, our independent Legal Expenses Insurance gives you piece of mind that if things don’t go as planned, you aren’t hit with unforeseen expenses.
Legal Expenses Insurance for Employment Tribunals
Safeguard your business from the growing threat of Employment Tribunal claims with our independent, FCA-regulated Legal Expenses Insurance (LEI).
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Legal Expenses Insurance for Health & Safety Prosecutions
If you’re concerned about the rising cost of non-compliance and the impact a serious safety incident might have on your bottom line, Legal Expenses Insurance (LEI) can provide added protection for your organisation.
Innovative platforms to help you maximise your investment
Alongside your advice line services, you’ll have access to our software platforms, giving you instant access to hundreds of EL and H&S templates and resources, as well specific tools to manage HR and H&S compliance.
myWorkNest
Your go-to management portal. Provided as part of our core service, myWorkNest gives you access to guidance notes, document templates and EL case history, as well as being your gateway to e-learning, a HR management tool, and SafetyNest
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SafetyNest
Our innovative compliance and risk management software, SafetyNest, will revolutionise your approach to safety management by creating smart “to-do” lists, cutting out the admin and allowing you to monitor your compliance in real time with our risk status indicator.
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Additional, experience HR support, whatever your need
Entirely bespoke, based on sector experience and tailored to your exact needs, our HR Consultancy services range from on-site support with disciplinaries and grievances to restructures and developing your HR strategy.
Delivered by a growing network of experienced and qualified HR Consultants across the UK, these hands-on HR services can be seamlessly integrated with our Employment Law and HR support to provide comprehensive solutions to your workforce challenges and identify opportunities for improvement and growth.
Understand and manage your compliance with audits and specialist risk assessments
Our experienced H&S consultants will complete full audits and well as specialist risk assessments, identifying your areas of concern and providing practical guidance on how to reasonably mitigate risks in the future.
Audit and Inspection
Not confident in your compliance? Want to know that risk is being appropriately managed at every level across your organisation? Then you need a health and safety audit.
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Risk Assessments
If you’re looking for a task-specific risk assessment, our experts can take a systematic look at your premises and practices and work with you to ensure safety and compliance.
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Transform your approach to training
Tired of classroom training, or unable to take time out? Our HR and Health & Safety e-Learning courses for managers and employees are a convenient and powerful alternative, incorporating videos and interactive testing for more flexible learning and development.
HR & Employment Law e-Learning
Meaningful training for managers and employees ensures leaders are well equipped to carry out their role, raises awareness of best-practice around workplace issues, and can be instrumental in preventing HR headaches.
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Health & Safety e-Learning
The business impact of poor health and safety management can be significant: reduced productivity, higher staff turnover, damage to your reputation, and even fines and prosecution. Of course, the primary concern is the welfare of your workforce.
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Experts in the Religious Sector
Experts in Employment Law, HR and Health & Safety
What makes us unique is that we combine the service quality of a law firm with the certainty of fixed-fee services to provide expert, solutions-focused Employment Law, HR and Health & Safety support tailored to your organisation.
Our people are the basis of our service. They are the reason why we have a 95% client satisfaction rate and an annual client retention rate of 97%.
Our sector experts help business leaders like you to:
- Proactively solve problems;
- Ensure regulatory compliance; and
- Achieve commercial objectives.
Who you’ll be working with
Greg Guilford
Director of HR Consulting
Client stories
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Gus Hosein
Executive Director, Privacy International
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WorkNest supports our 280 staff members with Employment Law and Health & Safety and has provided quality management training too.”
Lisa Best
Head of Service Delivery, Catalyst Choice
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We get a great deal of comfort and satisfaction knowing that we have support as and when we need it, in a decisive and responsive way.”
Richard Berry
Group HR Director, Culina Group
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We moved our legal support to WorkNest (formerly Law at Work) having previously used a time and line law firm. It was important, though, that an all-inclusive fee structure did not come at the expense of quality. Thankfully we’ve been delighted with the service we’ve received from WorkNest.”
Chief Executive
Waverley Care
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What we recognised in WorkNest is the background that they have. They are able to supply knowledge and experience in a number of disciplines, which enables us to develop our business in a way that’s safe, to do it on time and with a quality to it.”
Debbie Rainbow
Director of Human Resources and Health & Safety,
Bluestone National Park Resort
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Celia McKeon
Chief Executive, The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT)
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As the company started to get larger, we knew we had to protect our employees and our contractors both onsite and in the offices. WorkNest is exactly what we needed to move the company forward.”
Joanne Beaver
Operations Director, Beaverfit
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Pineapple have worked with the team at WorkNest (formerly Law at Work) since 2003, and we have built a trusted partnership together. We particularly like WorkNest’s concise and practical advice concerning employment law/HR issues and also appreciate their totally supportive approach in all areas of health and safety.”
General Manager
Pineapple Dance Studios
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I’ve taken WorkNest into every organisation that I’ve worked with. I’ve introduced them to many teams and many colleagues and referred them with absolute pleasure because I genuinely trust in the service that we get.”
People Director, The Works
