New employment contract - Standard working hours clause?
DidleySquat
Forumite 9 Posts
Hello,
I would be grateful for any views on a new employment contract that I have been given to sign.
This contract has to be signed in order for me to carry on with hybrid working (which I want to carry on with)
Basically, I currently have a very old contract which is very basic and was before my employer became a corporation - shows a flat 37 working hours per week, overtime is paid etc. (paid overtime went by-the-by over time and now toil is just offered, however, I don't argue this with them and take the toil as it suits me).
Please note, that I do already work extra hours without argument, as my job is such that it requires it.
However, as not being part of my contract I presume that I could therefore have legally refused.
On the third clause, I'm thinking of the near future world, and wondering how this could take effect, ie. If there are electricity shortages in the area.
I would be grateful for views on these clauses, as I'm not happy to sign, but I do want the hybrid working arrangement to continue.
Are these clauses standard within new employment contracts now?
Thanks in advance:)
'Your normal hours of work are 37 per week ......am to .....pm Monday to Thursday and ....am to ..... Fridays with a daily unpaid lunch break of .... minutes. You will be required to work such additional hours as may be necessary for the proper function of your duties without additional payment. You may be required to work evenings and weekends. If you are required to work additional hours on a Saturday or Sunday, you will be given time off in lieu from your normal working hours.'
'The corporation is entitled to change the days or hours during which you are required to work on a permanent or temporary basis on reasonable notice.'
'The corporation may decide to close for a number of working days in the efficiency. In that case, you will be allowed to add up to a maximum of 3 working days to your working days holiday entitlement. Any efficiency closure of more than 3 days in total must be taken out of your basic working days holiday entitlement.'
I would be grateful for any views on a new employment contract that I have been given to sign.
This contract has to be signed in order for me to carry on with hybrid working (which I want to carry on with)
Basically, I currently have a very old contract which is very basic and was before my employer became a corporation - shows a flat 37 working hours per week, overtime is paid etc. (paid overtime went by-the-by over time and now toil is just offered, however, I don't argue this with them and take the toil as it suits me).
Please note, that I do already work extra hours without argument, as my job is such that it requires it.
However, as not being part of my contract I presume that I could therefore have legally refused.
On the third clause, I'm thinking of the near future world, and wondering how this could take effect, ie. If there are electricity shortages in the area.
I would be grateful for views on these clauses, as I'm not happy to sign, but I do want the hybrid working arrangement to continue.
Are these clauses standard within new employment contracts now?
Thanks in advance:)
'Your normal hours of work are 37 per week ......am to .....pm Monday to Thursday and ....am to ..... Fridays with a daily unpaid lunch break of .... minutes. You will be required to work such additional hours as may be necessary for the proper function of your duties without additional payment. You may be required to work evenings and weekends. If you are required to work additional hours on a Saturday or Sunday, you will be given time off in lieu from your normal working hours.'
'The corporation is entitled to change the days or hours during which you are required to work on a permanent or temporary basis on reasonable notice.'
'The corporation may decide to close for a number of working days in the efficiency. In that case, you will be allowed to add up to a maximum of 3 working days to your working days holiday entitlement. Any efficiency closure of more than 3 days in total must be taken out of your basic working days holiday entitlement.'
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A so called contract of employment is not simply a sheet of paper with the word contract on it. Technically it is, at best, a statement of the main particulars of employment. An employer is legally obliged to give you this although in practice there is little useful redress if they don't.
Your "contract" includes things like any staff handbook, terms and conditions, job advert and acceptance, custom and practice, notices on the tea room wall etc. etc. Verbal agreements are just as binding (although obviously harder to prove what was agreed). Things evolve over time and become part of your "contract".
My reading of the first paragraph is that if you work additional hours Monday - Friday they are done for no additional pay nor TOIL, as the TOIL only refers to weekend working.
What is reasonable notice? There may be occasions where a month is reasonable for a change, whereas in another scenario, the company may only give a day or two notice of a fundamental change and they may consider that reasonable. It's a bit vague.
Paragraph three I cannot comment as I don't know what 'the efficiency' means.
This depends how much influence you may have to amend any contract details or whether you are given the document as a fait accompli.
To me, the first two sentences mean they could declide to close/not require your attendance and those days (up to three) could simply be additional holiday. So seems no detriment to you.
However, the final, third, sentence would in effect mean they were deducting the closure days (including the first three?, it's not clear) from your holiday entitlement. As employers can tell employees exactly when they can take paid leave, this is allowed by law as long as they give you appropriate notice. I think they may be planning to do this on a rolling notice basis, which is legal but not in the spirit of the Act. I therefore suspect that the first three days would be added to your entitlement in order than they could move to the rolling notice for the remaining days.
I agree, it is all too vague!
Is this normal now on a contract, where it all seems in favour of the employer?
I would get toil if expected to work over my normal hours during the weekday and the notice is fairly reasonable most of the time, mostly expected to work extra hours, depending upon the time of the year.
There is another clause in the contract, that states that you should not work more than 48 hours over a 17 week period. So, you can be made to work those hours for 17 weeks!
I'm just a grunt on the ground I'm afraid, so I have absolutely no influence on the contract details.
Thanks for the input.
The first couple of clauses don't seem at all unusual to me. The "may be required to work extra hours" has been on every contract I have ever had, and I've never been asked to do it as a regular thing. It's common on salaried roles and the question is how much you are being paid - if you are paid anything near minimum wage it's an issue, if you're on 80K a year it isn't, then it's just where you draw the line that it becomes a problem.
The third one appears to me to say that you have to take efficiency closure out of holidays but you can add up to 3 days holiday per closure to your allowance to cover it. That means that as long as the efficiency closure is for 3 days or less, you will basically be paid to stay at home, so closures of 3 days or less work in your favour.
Longer closures will eat into your holiday allowance, which is not great, but I suppose it's just about how likely this is to happen.
The efficiency closure is also not uncommon -they could simply say thatyou may be required to use your holiday but in fact they are saying that you would get 3 extra days paid and have to use holiday for longer periods, which is mpre generous than some.
You can of course query the weekend working and the provision about chaning your hours, if those havent been things that you've had to do in the past.
Please be aware that if you continue to work then you will be deemed to have accepted the new terms whether or not you sign the contract, unless you explicitly notify tham that you have not and are 'working under protest' while it is negotiated / any concerns are addressed.
Unless an employer is totally incompetent, they'd covered their backs for you to move to a new site, change in hours, additional hours, etc, etc inc different duties that are at your grade or lower meaning you could be a toilet cleaner if they could not get hold of their regular person/s.
We had our contracts changed a couple of times it was a take it or go stance and we all signed, well auto signed as if we had not signed the contracts by x date and we turned up for work on x date we would auto enroll to new contract, lol
My math isn't the best but assuming 20k salary and 37 hours, if they did actually start giving you expectations for 48 hour weeks you would quite soon depending on age dip below nmw. (I've assumed your over 23) so I think this is what you want to look out for