Firstly make sure that all employees have a written contract of employment which, from the 6th April is a legal requirement from day 1 of employment. It must, by law contain certain pieces of information about an individual’s employment such as how much they will paid and their working hours.   

When issuing contracts ensure that you have the right contracts for your needs. There’s a wide range of contract types – part time, fixed term, apprentice – and contractual and statutory entitlements differ depending on the contract you use so, make sure that you understand how each one works. We’d always recommend seeking professional help to draft and review your contracts on a regular basis to ensure that they are legally binding and compliant.  

One of the biggest mistakes we see being made is employers making the contract of employment too long. You do not need (and indeed shouldn’t) include all the details around rules and expectations within your contract of employment – this will make them contractual and mean that if you want to make any changes in the future it will be more difficult. Instead create an employee handbook to include any additional company information that you want employees to be aware of. This can include things such as your dress code, information on how to report absence and your IT and security policies.

When it comes to your policies make sure they are on specific topics and are aligned to your business. As an example, there is no need to have a lengthy Dress Code policy if you have employees that work remotely or you have a small number of employees. Common sense should be allowed to prevail in these situations!

And, when writing your contracts of employment and policies make sure that you are clear and specific. Clarity of language is important especially when considering clauses in relation to things such as the right to deduct monies from employees salary. If you have vague contractual terms then you may find that you don’t have the legal grounding that you need to enforce these clauses. It really is a case of the clearer the better!

Once you have all of your contracts and policy documents in place its vital that you hold regular reviews to reflect any changes in the law and your own business practices. To make sure you don’t miss anything work with a HR provider to ensure that you have everything covered. Out of date terms and conditions can leave you in hot water and you don’t want to be caught out when trying to discipline an employee by referring to an alleged policy breach only to find out that your policy doesn’t cover it!

Lastly remember that you must update your staff when making any changes – if they don’t know the rules it will be difficult for you to show that they broke them! The easiest way to notify employees of changes and ensure that they have accepted them is to utilise HR software so that you can track employees responses. Alternatively ask employees to confirm by reply to an email that they have read and understood the policy changes that have been made.

 

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