situation I come across quite frequently is an overly literal interpretation of
the contract of employment by that I mean I have me met employees regularly
who will look at their contract which may have been drawn up many years ago
and are prepared to walk within the very narrow confines of that contract but are
not prepared of world signers and as the workplace evolves and as the business
perhaps evolves they are inclined to stick with a little
technical legal interpretation of their existing contract for the fail to look
us and what do you overlook frequently is that there is an implied term in the
contract of employment thus you as an employee will follow
reasonable direction what is reasonable direction in any particular circumstance
will depend on the job and depend on the role and depend on the contract but if
the direction is reasonable even though it may be a slight change from what's
set out in your contract which is to say maybe five years old every 10 years old
you do what an employee have to adapt yourself to the changing circumstances I
provided the request or Direction is reasonable you would be expected to
follow it you will be expected to perform this inside term this is a
similar situation to person who has the contract under the description or a
schedule at the end of the contract it sets out their duties and the duties may
be fairly narrowly defined your gnarly prescribed order may be broadly
prescribed but the employee then when they are faced with a new task or a new
job to do look through this list very very closely
and decide because what they're now being asked to do is not intrude in the
list they don't have to adapt themselves I don't have to follow this new
direction that's not the case again it comes back to the simple fact of the
matter is that it is there is an applied term in the contract that you will
follow a reasonable direction what's reasonable at the same will depend on
the circumstances of each case for example if you're our receptionist for
example or secretary then it wouldn't be reasonable to expect you or asked you to
clean the boss's car or to wash his car or cut the grass at his home at the
weekend or anything of that nature however if you were a maintenance person
perhaps it would be reasonable to expect you or to ask you to do some routine
maintenance perhaps that is home or something of that nature again that will
depend on the actual contract again if you're a brain surgeon or a heart
surgeon or something like that we all know the broad definition or the broad
scope of that sort of role so what's reasonable and what's not reasonable
will be looked at in the context of the job and so on but what I would caution
against is an overly literal overly legalistic interpretation of what I
actually set out in the contract and if for example you're in the security
industry and you're working in a particular location for a while even
though the contract may be silent about geographical mobility if you're being
asked to move from one site to another and it's not a million miles away
then almost certainly there's an implied term in your contract that you will have
to move unless you have a specific expressed term in your contract saying
that you're gonna work on this site and they say totally so I hope you don't
fall into this mistake which I see quite regularly a the contract of employment
being employed or being interpreted or being construed very literally and be
the schedule or description of tasks etc if what you're being asked to do now is
not included that you down tools and are not prepared to do
don't think that's a sensible strategy to adopt I don't think he's a reasonably
want to adopt and I do think there is an implied term in most contracts that you
will follow a reasonable direction and what's reasonable in any situation will
depend on the situation and depend on the contract hope you find this video
useful if you do you might give a thumbs up down below thank you