Contracts of Employment and Written Particulars

Employment Contracts

As part of our services we draft bespoke contracts of employment for our Employer Clients. Clearly, the contract of employment is a very important document. There are certain clauses that must be included to comply with the requirements of The Employment Rights Act 1996. However, these minimum terms can be expanded upon allowing the Employer flexibility to manage the business. The key to a good contract is ensuring that it allows the employer to adapt to different situations, such as changing an employee’s hours of work and contains sufficient power to manage incidents, such as an employee who has incurred a speeding fine in the Company vehicle and the employer wants the right to deduct the fine from their wages.
If your business has employment contracts in place then upon inception of our services we will undertake a review of this document and make any necessary changes to reflect the points set out above.

Changing Employment Contracts

From time-to-time situations arise whereby employers need to make changes to their employee’s contracts of employment. The business reasons behind the desired change may include a reorganisation such as the introduction of a new shift pattern or, the introduction of a right to lay employees off without pay, due to a recent shortage of work.

Employers cannot unilaterally make changes to an employee’s contract of employment and accordingly need to obtain the employee’s agreement to insert the desired change into their contract. In our experience most employees agree to the change if they consider it to be fair. However, a situation may arise where an isolated employee refuses the desired change being made to their contract of employment. In this case, what are the options open to the employer to change the employment contract?

Where an employee refuses to allow the employer to change the contract of employment the employer must consult with the employee in order to see if the differences can be overcome. If the consultation does not bring about a resolution, then the employer may have to consider dismissing the employee, due to ‘some other substantial reason of a kind such as to justify the dismissal of an employee holding the position which the employee held’ and offering a new contract inclusive of the revised terms. If the employee does not accept the revised contract they will be dismissed for this reason which is a potentially fair reason for dismissal.

If you are considering changing your employee’s contracts then we can help. EBS Law have significant experience of advising employers on how to change employment contracts and successfully defending our Clients in the Employment Tribunal who have dismissed employees for refusing to agree to the change of contract.