The longer you have worked for your employer the more likely, as a general rule, you will be able to negotiate a higher value of settlement payment. This is for the following reasons:

• You will undoubtedly have more ‘political capital’ the longer you have worked for your employer: you may have direct access to the people who are authorising the negotiations and are therefore may be able to directly plead your case to them
• You may have valuable skills and you may know where the ‘bodies are buried’ with your employer (i.e. you may know things that your employer would not want to be disclosed, which may mean that your employer will be keen to tie you to a confidentiality clause and therefore increase your leverage in the settlement negotiations)