Employee - contract help

[party_pete]

I've just taken on a part-time employee.

They will be working four days a week, and three hours each day.

In their contact I want to state that they are entitled to four weeks paid annual holiday.

Having only employed Full-time staff before, I'm unsure of the correct wording to use in this aspect of their contract.

Do I state the holiday as an hourly allowance?
Do I use the phrase four weeks holiday pro rata?

I've had a look on the Buisness Link website but cannot find a definitive answer.

Anyone's experience on this would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

[los_design]

Hi

I have experienced this in the past and the way this was addressed was to offer the same holiday to the PT as you would the FT.

No pro rata just a straight 4 weeks or whatever is the norm.

I do not believe that you can now differentiate between FT and PT (apart from the final salary of course which is pro rata) I await correction from any HR experts out there...

Regards

[party_pete]

What I'm concerned with is that if I say four weeks paid holiday, is this taken for granted that it is four of their working weeks they are getting, and i'm not liable to pay them for four full weeks.

Not sure if i'm making it clear, but I know what I mean

[los_design]

Ahh

they get four weeks part time pay (you only pay for their contracted hours per week)

HTH

[Darren B]

Why worry about a contract for part time

Just issue a job description, i am sure that there are other ways around it and an employee contract is not a legal requirement.

[jont]

To avoid any confusion we quote the number of days and not weeks so they can get say 16 days paid holiday - the pay is at the same rate as their normal contract - this removes any mis-interpretation of what a week entails if they only work several days a week.

[Luddite]

You just need to use the words '4 weeks annual leave pro-rata' (or something like that, and make sure that you specify what hours/days the employee will be working in a normal working week. As Jont says, just spell out exactly what you mean, so if you want to give an explanation of what pro-rata is, do it.

Re Darrens suggestion about not bothering with a contract for p/t staff - whilst i'm sure that many employers don't, its not to be recommended. A contract is a contract whether it be verbal or written so you will be much better off making things plain from the outset.

If you are a fsb member (highly recommended if you employ people) you can get access to template contracts that cover all this sort of thing. I used to be in HR, so I know abit, but employment law changes all the time.

Nick

[chris ashdown]

My understanding is that the contract is a legal must from some time last year and must be issued to each employee within a certain timescale

The Basic Employment Agreement can be applied to a wide variety of jobs, particularly junior roles and those requiring only the statutory minimum requirements for a contract.




All employees must receive a written statement of their particulars of employment within 8 weeks of commencing employment.

The Statutory Minimum Employment Contract is compliant with both the Employment Rights Act 1996 and Employment Act 2002, and contains the following clauses as per the requirements of Section One of the former Act:
1. Name, Address, Job title
2. Date of employment and continuous employment
3. Duration of employment
4. Place of Work and Mobility
5. Hours of work
6. Remuneration
7. Overseas employment
8. Holidays
9. Sick pay
10. Pension
11. Collective Agreement
12. Grievance procedure
13. Disciplinary procedure
14. Governing Law

[Darren B]

All employees must receive a written statement of their particulars of employment within 8 weeks of commencing employment.

Shows you how out of date i am, mind you you can keep it simple though

[party_pete]

Thanks for all your input. All very helpful.

I used a combination of them all and went for a Statement of Employment, using an online work through template from Business Link Useful Link Here

[magajo]

Very Useful - Thanks

Just went through the Business Link statement (less than ten minutes) and now have a very satisfactory starting point for the contract. Thanks for the link.

[Miranda Stamp]

All my staff are part time, and I've also written in that should there be a bank holiday in any week, then their working hours for the week as a whole are reduced accordingly by 1/5 for that week whether or not they should be working on that bank holiday day (one only works Monday and Friday, another one never works Monday and Friday). This means Girl Monday has to put in a an extra hour or two at some point and Girl Tuesday takes a few hours off in a bank holiday week.

(have I explained that logically?)

[brian.mc]

As far as I understand it, when a part-time employee takes a holiday, their holiday pay is calculated by taking the average weekly hours worked durin the previous 3 months. There is more information available on HM Customs & Revenue website.