Employing people

Absenteeism can be a difficult thing to deal with in a legal way. This fact sheets gives details of the only way to deal with persist ant absenteeism and, as a final resort, terminate.

If a person is under school leaving age they are classed as a child. Children can be employed but there are very strict rules regarding the hours and work they can do.

Failure to have a disciplinary procedure in place can lead to an employee claiming unfair dismissal and taking an employer to a tribunal. Follow these guidelines and make sure that you procedure is water tight.

The purpose of a formal disciplinary hearing is to identify, discuss and resolve problems that can't be dealt with informally. The employee has rights that must be honoured and the hearing must adhere to a specific format.

There are 1001 ways to discriminate, the employer can even be held responsible when it is the employee that is discriminatory. Make sure that there are policies and basic procedures in place to avoid discrimination.

There are certain things that make a worker an employee. Get it wrong and you could end up paying your workers tax and NI instead of them. Check out what makes a worker an employee.

Flexible working is an entitlement for parents of children aged 16 or under. There are also recommendations that flexible working patterns be made available to all workers.

As an employer you have a duty of care for the health and safety of your workers, equally your workers have a care of duty to their fellow workers and their employer to ensure a safe work place. Backing all this up are the Health & Safety regulations.

Primarily in force in the public sector but it does have implications in the private sector. Make sure that the basic humans rights are not contravened in the work place.

There are hundreds of thousands of either illegal immigrants or people who are not allowed to work in the UK. Ensure you hire somebody who is entitled to work by following the check list.

Technically there is no such thing as a part time worker, only workers with varying hours. It is against the law to treat 'part timers' any differently in terms and conditions, pay etc than any other comparable worker.

To perform up to standard an employee must know what the standard is via a job description or other method. The area's below standard must be identified and discussions held with the employee putting forward a solution and time frame.

A worker who is employed for a specific task or period is generally classed as a short or fixed term worker, but continual renewal of the contract may lead to the becoming classed as a regular employee. Fixed or short term employees have exactly the same entitlements as regular employees.

These regulation cover things like hours, holidays, time off night workers, young workers etc.

A young person is someone between the school leaving age and 18 years old. They have special rules and regulations when they are employed.

IR35 was the identifying reference of a press release issued by HMRC that stated their views on people being hired via a service company. Since then anything to do with service companies is always referred to as IR35. At one time, service via a service company was a way of avoiding paying PAYE and NI, not anymore!