The law requires you to issue each employee or worker a statement of written statement of employment particulars on or before their first date of employment/engagement; this is known as a ‘principal statement’. This is a minimum statement concerning their employment or engagement and is not the same as a contract of employment. It covers issues related to pay and conditions, place of work, basic discipline and grievance and job title etc.
By law, you must provide the wider written statement within 2 months of the start of employment. This must include information about pensions and pension schemes, collective agreements, any right to non-compulsory training provided and disciplinary and grievance procedures. Employers must tell employees or workers about any changes to the written statement within one month of making the change.
A contract of employment is a more detailed document that will define a more stringent set of expectations on the employee and obligations on the employer. It is generally issued before employment commences and forms a written agreement of the nature of the offer and acceptance.
Whilst a written statement is quicker to produce, you should use a fuller contract for permanent employees, key roles and more senior people. Get written statements and contracts from the appropriate section in our products list.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
A full contract is often a safer option than written particulars because it contains more details about the terms and conditions of employment and on the employer’s expectations of the employee. For example, a contract of employment may contain clauses to protect the intellectual property of a company and post-termination restrictions to stop former employees from poaching customers.
Written particulars can leave important aspects of the employment relationship open to interpretation and ultimately, if the relationship were to turn sour, it will be for a tribunal to interpret those missing or controversial aspects.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
As a minimum, you need to provide a written statement of employment particulars to all staff. This applies to full time, part time, temporary or fixed term employees as well as workers.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
By law, you need to provide an initial written statement of particulars (a principal statement) on or before the employees/workers first day of employment/engagement.
You must provide the wider written statement within 2 months of the start of employment/engagement.
It is good practice though to ensure that all new employees or workers receive a full contract of employment or engagement before they start work for you; this is a safer option than written particulars because it contains more details about the terms and conditions of employment/engagement and on the employer’s expectations of the employee/worker.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
A breach of contract can be committed by either employer or employee. It basically means that one or other has done something which breaches an express (i.e. written) or an implied term of the employment contract. If serious enough the breach could lead to either party declaring the contract to be broken, leading the employer (in the event of the employee’s breach) dismissing the employee with or, in the case of gross misconduct, without notice. If the employer has committed a serious breach of contract the employee may regard themselves as having been dismissed with or in the case of a very serious breach, without notice. This is known as a ‘constructive dismissal.’
Contact us if you want a potential breach of contract (or how to approach managing a change to a contract), or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
In the event of a tribunal claim for another reason (e.g. unfair dismissal) the failure to provide a statement of written particulars will normally be added to the claim with a potential penalty of 4 weeks’ pay.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
You should issue each employee or worker with a copy of their own contract of employment and ask them to sign and return a copy to you. You should familiarise yourself with all of the clauses and make sure that you do not operate in ‘breach of contract’, i.e. by acting in a way that is at odds with what you have written in the contract. You should also ensure that all of your employees understand their obligations under the contract. In Scotland the contract should also be witnessed by another person.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
No. Minor changes in the law will be viewed to be incorporated within your contract of employment, whether they are written in or not. When you buy new contracts (e.g. for new employees) these will be updated where necessary, but you need not update old contracts. However, where a major change or development in the law, or the person’s terms (e.g. a promotion) occurs we do recommend you issue a new contract.
Minor changes to terms of employment (a pay rise) can be covered by a note to the employee, a copy of which should be kept on their personnel file.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
Contact us if you want to discuss what to do in the event of 1 or more employees refusing to sign contracts (or you want to start the process of implementing new ones) or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
Continuous service is the date the employee originally joined the Company OR transferred into the Company under a TUPE arrangement in this period of employment:
Ex 1: An employee joined Ace Ltd on 1 Sep 1988 and has not left the Company at any time. He was promoted in October 2004. His continuous service date will be recorded as 01/09/1988.
Ex 2: An employee joined the Red Lion Pub Holding Co Ltd on 3rd March 2000. On 5th March 2005 Alphabet Inns bought the Red Lion Pub Holding Co Ltd, and all of Red Lion’s staff transferred to Alphabet under TUPE. The employee’s start date with Alphabet is the original date he started with Red Lion, i.e. 3rd March 2000, not the transfer date.
Ex 3: An employee joined Ace Ltd on 15th April 1992. He left Ace in 1994, but returned into a new job with Ace on 1st Oct 2001 and has been employed there ever since. His start date for continuous service purposes is 1st October 2001, since his earlier service was broken by his leaving in 1994.
Continuous service is important since many employment rights are based on length of service:
– The right to submit a claim to an employment tribunal applies to staff with 2 years + service (except unlawful discrimination where there is no minimum service)
– The right to a redundancy payment applies to staff with 2 years+ service
– The amount of redundancy pay an employee is entitled to increases with age and service
– The amount of notice an employee is entitled to receive from their employer in the event of termination of their employment increases in line with their service up to a maximum of 12 weeks for 12 years service (or more if their employment contract says more.)
Contact us if you want to discuss service terms, or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
There are many types – permanent, temporary, fixed term, casual, zero hours, self employed…to name just a few. You can read more about employment contracts here.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
We do urge caution – writing contractual clauses (or indeed changing standard clauses) is a skilled business and we would advise you to email us a copy of the clause or change you would like to make so that we can check that it might not have any potentially damaging implications. In most cases we can do this for you as a part of your support package (HR Access/HR OUtsource), but if the changes are major, or demand a major re-write or research we will agree with you a fee for doing this before we undertake the work.
Contact us if you want a bespoke employment contract or clause to be drafted or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
The contract of employment states the terms of the relationship between you and your employee. Changing one of those terms requires a contractual amendment, or in some cases (e.g. a promotion) a new contract altogether. Some changes are so minor that only an amendment to contract might be required, rather than issuing a complete new version. For example, if you increase an employee’s pay, you should send them a ‘side letter’ confirming the new rate of pay. A copy of the letter should be kept on file, and this will constitute a ‘contractual amendment’. Myhrdept.co.uk contains various template letters to achieve contractual amendments (these are not available to ‘free pack’ users of myhrdept.co.uk).
Note that whilst minor contractual amendments caused by changes to the law or increases in pay etc are unlikely to cause difficulty, employers must not unilaterally change the terms of employment without agreement. To do so could give rise to a fundamental breach of contract, allowing the employee to resign and claim they have effectively been dismissed as a result of your breaching their contractual rights. This is known as ‘constructive dismissal’. See our employer’s guide to varying contracts of employment for more on this.
There are ways of effecting contractual change without an employee’s consent, but these are necessarily quite involved processes.
Contact us if you want to discuss amending contract terms, or call 01628 820515 to discuss your needs.
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