Narrow Quay HR - specialist HR support for higher education clients

History and background

Narrow Quay HR (NQHR) is a specialist HR consultancy that sits within VWV. It was founded in 2017 by two lawyers in VWV's Employment Law team, Caitlin Anniss and Sarah Martin. Since then, the team has grown considerably and today all of our HR consultants are either fully qualified employment lawyers or experienced HR professionals, giving our clients the benefit of both solid legal grounding and practical HR experience, including in house in the HE sector. Narrow Quay HR has extensive experience working with higher education clients, typically when there is a need for expert advice or additional capacity.

Case study

To give a practical example, we carried out an investigation into allegations against a senior professor, who was the director of a research institute at a leading university. Over 20 allegations had been raised in a joint complaint made by several employees within the institute.  These included bullying and harassment, failure to make reasonable adjustments, victimisation and discrimination (on grounds of both sex and disability). The allegations were raised under the university's dignity and respect policy but overlapped with complaints of research misconduct and whistleblowing.

It took over five months to conclude the investigation, due to the complexity of the issues raised and the requirement to carry out lengthy interviews with all parties, several of whom needed reasonable adjustments within the process. Our consultant provided a detailed report covering all the allegations which ran to over 200 pages. The report concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to uphold the allegations and made recommendations to improve relationships and working practices going forward. While their allegations were not upheld, the university was able to demonstrate to the complainants that their concerns had been taken seriously and thoroughly investigated and that positive actions were then taken as a result.

Key services for higher education providers

While we offer a full range of HR services, there are particular areas that we have found HE clients have found most helpful:

• Investigations
  • We have extensive experience in carrying out complex and sensitive investigations, including for disciplinary and grievance processes. Typically, as in the case study above, we are instructed where the investigation relates to senior staff members, where an impartial investigation is essential, or for large and intricate matters where there is not sufficient in-house capacity to manage the investigation. NQHR offers a robust and professional investigation service, ensuring that matters are handled fairly and in compliance with employment law.
• Workplace Mediation
  • Conflicts in the workplace can be particularly disruptive in an HE setting and are very rarely resolved through internal grievance processes. These processes can absorb huge amounts of internal time and resources and can often place further strain on relationships instead of improving things. Narrow Quay HR provides an impartial mediation service for an affordable fixed fee to help resolve conflicts quickly and effectively; over 95% of mediations carried out by our trained and accredited mediators have resulted in the parties reaching a formal agreement by the end of the mediation day.
• Panel Support
  • We understand that panel members for internal processes ,such as disciplinary and grievance hearings and appeals, are often not regularly involved in HR-related work and that your policies and procedures may require that external panel members are appointed in some situations. NQHR can provide expert and impartial support on these occasions, ensuring that panel members receive guidance in safely reaching what can be difficult decisions.

Narrow Quay HR stands out for its practical, client-focused approach. We understand the pressures faced by the HE sector and work closely with clients to deliver tailored solutions that are both pragmatic and cost-effective. 

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For more information, please contact Andrew Miles at amiles@narrowquayhr.co.uk or 01173145224.

Before joining NQHR, Andrew worked in various in-house HR roles, most recently as a Faculty HR Business Partner at University of Surrey.