in this video I want to take a look at how I draft the contract of employment
for small business owners small employers who contact me on a regular
basis for conflicts so I'm going to take you through my contract and the thought
process and the important things that I see in the contract a lot to be careful
for or watch out for okay so we'll start here this is essentially my template
conflict this is my starting point so clearly the contract should be issued on
the letterhead containing the name and address of the employer
at the outset then you're going to address your letter your challenging
conditions letter to the employee and you're going to send it out and
duplicate once you're satisfied with it and the employee is going to sign two
copies and you're going to take one copy back and then both of you houses have a
signed copy of the contract of employment this contract will also keep
your right in terms of your obligations on to the terms of employment
information Act of 1994 which is the statutory obligation you must do this
you must give employees a written statement of certain terms and
conditions of employment within two months of starting the job so you
obviously address your your letter your terms and conditions letter to the
employee and you set out here the name of the the legal entity that is the
employer so I could be a sole trader it could be a partner it could be a limited
company you need to be careful about that they're in this force for a
paragraph there's a line here at the end which are two lines at the end which I
would strongly recommend and you'll see here it says for the avoidance of doubt
I'm gonna highlight this for the avoidance of that these documents are
not contractual and can be amended under a place of claims time of the discretion
of I'm referring there two copies of the policies and procedures I need to start
handbook will be given to the employee under separate cover but I am
stipulating that those documents the staff handbook the relevant policies
policies and procedures are not actually part of the contract and are not
contractual now have a separate business or a separate video or other about
whether the staff handbook should be contractual or not take a look at it on
youtube you'll see why I don't recommend that it's contractual and you can see
why then I am stipulating here that for the avoidance of doubt these documents
that is the contract or the staff handbook is not contractual and can't be
amended under or a place from time to time so I'm saying here that this letter
and bonney's the entire agreement and understanding between employer and
employee so today for employment and that's going to be here
if the employee has started already you're gonna put in the proper
commencement date of the enjoyment if the employee is going to start with you
in the next week or month or so then obviously put in the correct date as
well now you're going to have a clause here I would strongly recommend it
subjective science actually completion of the probation period specified below
that's very very important I recommend very strongly that you have a probation
period of at least six months and that's extended but it should be extendable to
eleven months that's in relation to a panel conflict you can also have a
probation period in relation to a fixed term conflict but there are two types of
fixed term contracts one is for a specific term for example six months or
12 months or two years or indeed five years the other is what's called a
specific purpose contract this is a contract for the specific purpose of
doing something so a person could be working in your business or in your
school or whatever for the specific purpose of covering for somebody on the
maternity leave for example likewise you could have a specific purpose conflict
for the purpose of a particular construction project or for a building
project or for something of that nature in other words it's got a specific
objective or a specific purpose at the contract only lasts for as long as that
purpose is there he could be as a say maybe roadworks or building a big rage
or something of that nature once the object is satisfied and achieved the
contract is at an end as I said is a fixed term contract and that's for a
specific duration of time it could be six months it could be six years so
that's what you need to put in there if you are going for a fixed term contract
one of those conflicts otherwise you're looking at a permanent contract provided
the person passes the probation period you'll see here as well as something
that's important which is in my contract that is a statement of the unfair
decisions that will not apply to this initial consisting only of the expiry of
the term or assessor of the purpose specified in this clause in other words
if the contract is a fixed term contract for 12 months
the very fact that the 12 months comes to an end means that the contract is
over and it will not give rise to an unfair dismissal claim in other words
the contract has simply expired in accordance with the terms okay the next
thing then is your appointment is so you could put in there a solicitor
secretary receptionist retailer systems support staff or whatever your job
description is attached we show you the job description there at the end
essentially at the end you put in a job description setting out the main bullet
points I would suggest of the responsibilities and tasks involved in
the job the location clause you want to stipulate or set set out exactly where
the person is going to be locators and you're also going to have to stipulate
if they are going to have to perform their duties away from the premises from
time to time so you know they may have a job that will require some travel or
they may have a job or you may want them to travel to different branches of your
business around Dublin around Leinster or wherever it's important or that you
put the location in relation to the job in the contract it's also important that
you put in a clause providing for geographical flexibility in other words
that you can be flexible or that the employee will be flexible in love in
relationship locations of work to meet the needs of the business so that's
important location this is the probationary period it's one of the most
important clauses I believe in a contract employment especially every
giving one to a person for the first time I would recommend a six-month
period and that should be extendable to 11 months and I would also recommend
that it states quite clearly that during the probation period the only notice the
person employee is entitled to is one weeks notice I have seen contracts where
they forget about the probationary period notice period and the contract
itself will then have three months notice
and after a mortix clear if the employee is not going to work out and then the
employer is then stuck with the three months nor his period even though the
employee may only be there for a month or two months or three months and even
though the terminators at during probation they
have left out the provision for one weeks notice in the probation period
then they're stuck with the general notice period in the contract that could
be a month or three months the hours have worked and it's set out here if
it's a retail business that's important to it's an office obviously that's
important so you should set out the opening hours of the business and you
should also set out the situation in relation to overtime
he's the person's going to get paid a normal rate for overtime are they going
to get time and a half maybe double time and or is to no overtime payable in
respect of the position it may be a salary job it may be you know sort of
understood or certainly made clear for the contract that over time will not be
payable but you need to make that clear at the outset because we don't then in
the event of a dispute ie a person has the contract for 40 hours a week in
their meet the end of doing an extra hour - every day after a period of time
you get very frustrated and disgruntled and they would be looking to bring some
sort of the claim perhaps for the extra hour world in the normal course of
events quite frankly they are title to be paid for the work but if they're on a
salary and if the contract says you're not going to get paid for overtime well
that's fairly definitive saturdaya rate of pay then should be
included in your contract as well so you should set out just you know how often
they're going to get paid whether it's weekly monthly it's a etc and one thing
you should put in if they are a retail worker for example or on a relatively
low wage you should print up a reference page for the purpose of the minimum
national minimum wage is this is actually a requirement requirement in
the contract of employment that you put in at a reference period you also have a
clause here you'll see where the company or the employer either
reserves the right to deduct from your wages on it so much due to it so you
know this might include overpayment of wages or something of that nature
I knew leaved and that's governed by the organisation of working time I said 1997
however your employment may provide more generous
enjoyment or any relief provisions if that's the case it should be stipulated
here one thing that you might not hear is this except in special circumstances
no more than ten days may be taken at any one time so 10 days leave with
essentially two weeks so a lot of employers will it's just that the
employee chopping off more than two weeks another thing that you may
consider it's a certain number of your onion leaves it's never taken or maybe
designators states that you must take us holidays when the office is closed
during the Christmas and Easter holidays you'll be given notice of these days and
events so if you're the employer you might want to consider this and just see
if there are any particular dates that enclose for example Good Friday or
holidays Easter holidays at Christmas or whatever if you want them to be
designated as holiday dates where you need to specify it and set it out there
the situation in relation to paint general is that there's no obligation on
the employer to provide a pension however the employer should make
provision for payment by the employee into a PS or a this is a private pension
situation for the employee so you should make provision for allowed the employee
facilitated payments into a PS PRSA of their choice and you should give them a
list of approved providers if they request and you can get a list of
approved PRSA providers online anywhere now the okay locally if you are an
employer who operates a pension well then you just stipulate or set out here
what's the situation they are what are entitled to what payments will be made
etcetera censor retirement age I would strongly recommend that you have a
retirement age in a contract if that's going to be an issue for you you do need
to specify it or set it out if you don't well then you're going to have a
situation where it may be very difficult to get somebody who comes to a certain
age and you want to for intergenerational reasons etc promote
younger people but if there's no retirement age of the contract will
there in Irish law at the moment is king
stand-in on 28th of March of 2018 there's no specified or particular
retirement age unless you in the public service or in a specific job provided in
which the contract provides for a retirement age illness then you should
set out here what the situation is in relation to illnesses you should sell
out the reporting requirements etc such now you may also have a start handbook
and I would strongly recommend that you have a hammer start handbook the staff
handbook should specify in more detail what the reporting requirements are in
relation to illness how they report etcetera etcetera and you should also
set out if there is a sick paint scheme what the situation is or how long it
lasts for and so on and so forth or if the reason the sick pay scheme you
simply say that the company or the employer does not operate a secret
scheme and that is the legal position you note you're not obliged but some
employers do maternity parental adopt upon forcement you leave and there are
other statutory leaves as well again details of these should be set out in
the start handbook so I would recommend it to the staff handbook and that you
sell outdoors leave arrangements and the teittleman's in the start handbook you
should have a confidentiality clause as well dealing with customers or clients
of your business you know what any information or details of those being
disclosed to animals or any notes or memoranda taken from the business you
also may want to put into your contract restrictive covenant restrictive
covenant is something that stops somebody from setting up a business in
competition with yours only working in the same industry within a second
separate or a certain geographical distance for a specified time for
example six months after they leave you if you have a nail bar or if you have a
hairdressers or something you don't want somebody setting up two doors down the
street after they've left you and bringing you their clients with them you
also don't want them carrying out work at home for example in their own house
member in the garage or a converted shed or something and they're doing hair or
to do it makeup or to do nails whatever you need some protection for yourself
now your restrictive covenant that is your non-compete clause for when they
leave the job must be reasonable so it can't be completely la-la in terms of
stopping them from working for you know twelve months over the entire region of
Ireland because people have a constitutional right here in a living
but you also have a constitutional right and a common law right to protect your
business but it does have to be reasonable as to time allows to
geography what area you're looking to protect an important bunch of procedures
will be those dealing with grievance discipline bullying harassment sexual
harassment etc again start handbook so your three most important procedures
grievance discipline and dignity at work you also have a data protection clause
here which stipulates that saying it by saying this document you consent to the
employer and maintaining personal data about you or retaining it and this is
getting much more strict with the introduction of GDP or from a 2018 you
cannot just rely on this simple signing of a contract as consent you really need
a more lawful basis for a consent from the employee now you may well have that
for example you do need to maintain records of employees for the Revenue
Commissioners for the Department of jobs enterprise deployment and so on and so
forth your statutory and legal obligations but it's not an offer will
not be enough at GTB or GDP or comes in from a 2018 to simply get the employee
to sign this and this gives you free rein to do what you like with the data
that won't be the case this country's notice this clause here
deals with the notice period in relation to the termination of employment what it
set out here is the statutory situation you may require however your employees
to give you more notice you may require fortnight or a month or three months or
something of that nature and will depend on the nature of the job pay or
termination then that's a relatively straightforward sort of charge you title
to pay calculator once a week's salary Fridays work since
you last paid plus any accrued holiday entitlements changes to your terms
employment this is important however it's of limited value you are entitled
to as an employer change the terms of employment however those changes must be
reasonable if they're not reasonable you do need to negotiate the changes
which are probably get them to sign up towards where you then we'll ask the
employee to sign here and you'll get give them two copies and get from the
sign board copies new take one back and they take one back and in the event of a
dispute then both parties will know exactly where you stand down here then
it's done description I would recommend a number of bullet points 5 to 10 molar
points selling out the main responsibilities and duties associated
with the law I hope you find this useful if you do you might give with a thumbs
up down below and if you need a contract or staff handbook or whatever
feel free to contact me and I'll be able to give you a quotation for a contract
in the staff handbook contract on its own without a staff handbook is I
wouldn't recommend I recommend getting the staff handbook as well because a
contract quite frankly it's going to refer to the policies and procedures in
your staff handbook and if you don't have a staff handbook then your contract
is going to look like the upper with North laws as it were if you want to put
all your policies and procedures in the contract well then you're going to have
a huge unwieldy document and your policies and procedures are also going
to be crunched contractual you don't want that because you want to reserve
the right to change them or add or subtract as time goes on hope you find
it useful given at the thumbs up down below he knew thanks
you