It is great when everything is going well at the beginning of the employment relationship, but if the relationship turns sour you may wish you had paid more attention to the employment contract. Here are some key points to follow:
Legal bits - the legal bits that need to be included are common sense. (More legal stuff next time.)
Name and address of employee and employer - this needs to be the employer's registered office.
Employee start date and continuous service date - if it is a new employee, this will be the same.
Hours and days of work - you need to be clear when staff should work. Too often I have seen nursery owners employ people on the hours and days that the new employee dictates.
Job title and a brief job description - give a job description to the employee with the contract. That way they know exactly what it is that they are signing up to do.
Place of work - you may want to add another clause here to allow you to move employees around to different settings.
Pay date and rate of pay - everyone needs to know when that important pay day is going to be and how much you are going to pay them.
Sick entitlement - there is no legal requirement to pay company sick pay. If the employee meets the qualifying conditions you will need to pay statutory sick pay (SSP). An employee needs to be off work for four days before SSP kicks in.
Holiday entitlement - you must let employees have holiday and you have to pay them for it, even if they only work part-time. If an employee works five days a week they are entitled to 28 days holiday per year, even if they only work two hours a day. But they only receive two hours pay for each day they are on holiday. The 28-day entitlement can include bank holidays. There is no legal entitlement to bank holidays.
Pension provision - you need to state if you provide a pension or not. Be aware that you will soon have to provide a pension for employees as either a company pension or by joining the Government's auto enrolment scheme.
Next month, I will give you more legal tips along with some money-saving ideas for your business.
Jacqui Mann has just won 'Woman in Business', at the first annual Women Inspiring Women Awards, for Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire.
