Avril England is a partner and the national head of employment at Gateley Legal, based in the firm’s Manchester office. She shares a day in her working life with The Brief

My day tends to start at around 6:15 am, when my two human alarm clocks, my five- and eight-year-old children, usually decide it’s time for me to wake up!

What follows is probably fairly typical in any working parent’s household. My husband and I take it in turns during the week as to who sorts the kids depending on our work schedules.

Today is my day, so it’s the usual chaos of trying to get myself and the kids ready for the day ahead. I try to pre-plan by putting out uniforms, getting bags ready, etc the night before but inevitably there is always something missing from the school bag that we have to rush to sort.

Hybrid working

After the kids are dropped off at breakfast club, the working day begins! Gateley has a hybrid working policy so during the week I split my time between the office and working from home.

This means I'll either be checking my emails walking home or on the way to catch the train – coffee in hand either way! Today is an office day for me, so it’s a case of heading to the train station.

I enjoy my office days, as they give me a chance to catch up in-person with my great colleagues from across the business. We all work extremely hard but there is always good camaraderie in the office, which is important.

On the way into the office I take a call from a client regarding a collective consultation query concerning an office relocation. I'll need to follow up later in the day by sending them draft scripts and outcome letters.

I get to the office at 8.00am, and typically I will be the first one in, meaning I have time to catch up on any emails and administration that needs doing before the core hours of the day begin. This first hour of the day is usually quiet time to get ready for the day ahead, albeit many clients know I start early so will occasionally sneak in an early call!

Gateley Team Spirit

My first meeting of the day is our department partners call, joined by all employment partners from each of the offices. We work as a national team, with all solicitors working with all partners no matter where they are based, so it's a good opportunity to catch up on workloads, queries and successes.

The synergy across all our offices to support one another plays into what we call the “Gateley Team Spirit” – where we work together to achieve success.

Investigations work

Following that, today I have two investigation meetings. In 2023, we launched ‘Investigateley’, a service where companies ask us to investigate employee matters where they feel they need an independent party to conduct the investigation, either because they do not have the skills in-house given the complexity or it involves a senior individual where there are limited people within the company with the relevant seniority to carry out an investigation.

We have been extremely busy with this service, conducting investigations on a variety of matters, including allegations of sexual harassment, bullying and harassment. Today, I am interviewing two witnesses as part of an ongoing investigation.

I've already prepared my script and questions to ensure I'm covering all key issues, but it’s important to be able to react to the responses given.

Key client matters

Next, I’ve been sent an urgent appeal letter to review, a complex grievance outcome where the employee has raised multiple concerns, and the client is nervous about a potential Tribunal. I’ve reviewed it but need to discuss those concerns, so an urgent call is put in place to go through the letter.

Following that, I’ve been asked to speak to a client of our corporate team regarding a potential senior level exit and how this should be approached.

Then it’s lunchtime, which typically consists of 80% sorting stuff for the kids and 20% eating. Today is no different.

My daughter has a fancy dress party coming up soon, and I’ve been tasked with fulfilling the brief of 'being an alien'. Once I’ve sorted the outfit, it’s then time to grab a bite to eat and head back to the office.

In the afternoon I speak to a client about a bespoke training course for their Exec team on the new duty to prevent sexual harassment. The client wishes to ensure the Exec team realises the importance of the duty but also to allow them to discuss their overall Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategy in an open forum. The training will be scheduled for early next year.

Management responsibilities

The rest of the working day is spent attending to ad hoc advisory calls and emails, supervising junior team members with Employment Tribunal and advisory work, as well as attending internal meetings regarding the department as a whole. Since I became the National Head of Employment, I attend regular calls with other department heads as well as the heads of our support functions including finance, HR and compliance.

Quality family time

It’s then time to collect the kids from after-school club, before dropping them off at the variety of activities they have, which today is football and swimming!

After that, it's bedtime for the kids, and my final (and favourite) “meeting” of the day, a catch up on what's happened in their day and reading their school books. Unlike at work, where I have to lead a lot of meetings, it’s over to the kids to take the lead on these catch ups.

After the kids are asleep, I jump on my Peloton for 30 mins before dinner. I really hate cooking (and I’m terrible at it too!), but luckily my husband is happy to cook and supply me with food, otherwise I’d live off sandwiches or cereal!

If it's a busy time I tend to jump back on my emails after dinner but if my inbox is low, we'll watch something on TV. We are a big footballing family so often it'll be football on the TV, or we'll pick a series to watch.

I love action series and have recently started to re-watch some classics like 24 (that does require a large investment of time!). But at the moment, we're watching Nightsleeper on the BBC, not the best thing to watch when you regularly get the train!

I then make sure as much as possible is sorted for the following day, making the morning a little less chaotic.

Then before I know it, it’s 10.00pm and bedtime … before the chaos all begins again at 6:15am!

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