Workforce Management

The foundations of effective employment

Workforce management is not a background function. It is the operating system of any successful business. At Watershed, we help employers build the right frameworks, legal, procedural, cultural, to enable high performance across their teams.

This is the everyday infrastructure of work: contracts, policies, expectations, and behaviours. Get these right, and you prevent the kinds of issues that drain time, escalate risk, and compromise productivity. Get them wrong, and the consequences are seldom minor.

Our approach is grounded in clarity, commerciality and control. Whether advising FTSE-listed employers or growing enterprises, we ensure workforce processes are not just compliant, but coherent, consistent, and aligned with your business goals.

Not policy for policy’s sake

Too often, employment documentation is treated as a compliance exercise. But policies and contracts are more than legal paperwork; they are instruments of culture.

They articulate what matters in your business, your standards, your tone, your red lines. That’s why we go beyond off-the-shelf templates. We build tailored, readable, and business-relevant policies that help managers lead with confidence.

We’ve worked with global clients to overhaul entire suites of workforce policies, not just to meet legal standards, but to reflect values, support diversity, and withstand reputational scrutiny. These are tools to manage conduct, guide decision-making, and ultimately prevent disputes.

Performance, flexibility, inclusion

Managing a workforce today means navigating shifting expectations. From hybrid working arrangements to performance thresholds, our clients face complex decisions every day.

We provide strategic legal advice on managing absence, enforcing flexible work arrangements, supporting neurodiverse or disabled employees, and addressing underperformance before it becomes litigious.

What defines our work is nuance. We don’t deliver generic HR advice, we provide commercially intelligent legal guidance to employers managing real-world complexities.

When a client sought advice on handling hybrid working expectations post-pandemic, or how to resolve a claim of misrepresentation in a job offer involving a disability, our team combined legal acuity with pragmatic clarity.

Managers, not machines

We believe in putting line managers at the centre of workforce management. It’s their judgement, leadership, and day-to-day decisions that shape culture and performance.

That’s why we support not just HR leaders, but also operational managers with direct people responsibility. We help them understand their obligations, their discretion, and the impact of their decisions, legally and commercially.

For clients without an in-house HR team, or for those seeking independence from their standard legal provider, we often step in to provide direct, practical support at senior levels. That might involve reviewing internal investigations, supporting directors through change programmes, or advising on complex grievances within HR itself.

Prevention through precision

This work is often dismissed as ‘low-level’. We disagree.

The sharp end of employment litigation usually begins with the blunt end of workforce management. Disciplinary processes mishandled. Adjustments overlooked. Ambiguous policies misapplied. Our role is to mitigate those risks not with platitudes, but with precise, senior-led advice from seasoned employment lawyers.

We are not advising for the sake of best practice. We are advising to support business performance, reduce disruption, and keep you on the front foot. Workforce management is not a legal safety net, it is a strategic lever.

Why clients choose Watershed

Unlike large national firms, we don’t delegate workforce matters to juniors or treat them as administrative workstreams. At Watershed, your point of contact will always be a senior, experienced solicitor who understands how these issues play out in real businesses.

We also work closely with our sister firm Collinson Grant, drawing on decades of management consultancy expertise in workforce transformation and operational performance.

That means we’re not just helping you stay compliant, we’re helping you stay competitive.