HE spring webinar series: Employment and immigration issues affecting higher education in 2023

Nurturing staff engagement and wellbeing in a post-pandemic world brings a number of challenges for the higher education sector. Increasing regulatory pressures, heightened monitoring and reporting demands, management of casual working contracts and pay disputes - are all bringing challenges to maintaining a happy, healthy and productive workforce in the sector.

These challenges coupled with an increasing focus on internationalisation and competition for overseas staff and students, have also brought a number of immigration challenges. On a day-to-day basis, we’re seeing pressures to ensuring the right structures, policies and procedures are in place to manage and monitor ongoing compliance with immigration rules.

In the second of our higher education spring webinar series, our employment and immigration specialists discussed the key employment and immigration trends from 2022, anticipated key issues in 2023, and talked through how these obstacles can be overcome.

Our panel was chaired by Ashley Norman, co-lead of our Higher Education practice and an employment and immigration law specialist. Ashley was joined by Anne Palmer, legal director, and Catherine Turpin, Associate, both in our Employment, Pensions and Immigration team.

Key issues covered included:

• How can universities ensure effective staff engagement in a post pandemic world?
• Key issues managing casual and atypical working contracts
• Managing mental health and staff wellbeing/disability discrimination and reasonable adjustments
• Effective management of disputes
• Immigration issues relevant to higher education.

This was the second in our series of webinars that we’re hosting in March, which will cover a range of different topics across the higher education sector.

Our higher education specialists will be hosting our #WednesdayWebinars from 12-1pm on 1, 8, 15 and 22 March.

Other events in the HE Spring Webinar series include: 

Information security, technology and data sharing - 1 March 2023

New obligations for building and fire safety coming in 2023 - 15 March 2023

Dealing with allegations of sexual misconduct involving students - 22 March 2023

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