8 cepler BIRMINGHAM LAW SCHOOL Employment Law: Seminar 2 This seminar will cover the following areas: - Legal practice skills: Drafting - Legal knowledge: Terms of contracts of employment Preparing for the Seminar You are a newly qualified solicitor at Law Rocks LLP. You receive the email below from your Supervisor: Hi, l've just received the attached email from Penny Waio wit at ScienceTech (Appendix 1). She wants our help with drafting contracts of employment for staff who are newly recruited to the ScienceTech admin team. Apparently she is planning a recruitment drive, and is keen to have a standard form of contract for all of the new staff to sign. l agreed with Penny that we would use a simple sf statement as the contract, as these are very junior roles. I've found the attached 3 1 statement precedent (Appendix 2) for you to use when drafting this. l'm concerned that quite a lot of what Penny wants to include in the contracts is inappropriate, however, so can you please take care when drafting to make a note of any legal issues which arise so that we can discuss these? The overall approach that I'd suggest is as follows: 1) is the precedent correct, or is there anything that section 1 EPA 1996 requires which is missing? 2) Are there any instructions from Penny which would not be legally appropriate to include? if so, what would you suggest as alternatives? 3) is there anything else that we should include? 4) Having considered all of this, please have a go at drafting the section 1 statement/contract, and bring a copy to our meeting so that we can discuss this. Many thanks, Gurdeep Please take the following steps in preparation for the seminar: Follow the instructions from your supervisor, including producing a first draft of the s 1 statement. You will need to use your Lecture notes on Contracts of Employment (Week 2, Lectures 1 and 2), as well as the allocated Week 2 textbook reading to assist you. Please come to the seminar prepared to discuss and explain your drafting and any legal issues that you considered in preparing this. During the Seminar Your seminar leader will direct a discussion around the key legal points arising from this task, as well as considering the drafting of a contract of employment. Appendix 1 Email from Penny Walowitz To: Gurdeep From: Penny Walowitz Date: This week Subject: New Contracts Hi Gurdeep, Please can you help with putting together the basic contracts of employment for new admin staff, as we discussed on the phone? Following our discussion, I'd like to include the following terms: They will be working at our office at 12 Calthorpe Road, Harborne for now, although we may relocate them to our Edgbaston office when that's been refurbished in 2024. Thejob title is \"Administration Assistant". Salary is 14,000 per annum. We pay all staff on the last working day of each month. I'm worried about some of them going off to work for one of our competitors. Can we include some kind of restriction to stop them doing this for at least 3 years after working for us? They will get 20 days paid holiday per year including bank holidays. Hours of work will be 9am to 5.30pm. Presumably we have to allow them a break at some point. What's the minimum break allowed? We want to be able to get rid of them easily if our staffing needs change, so can you include a one week notice period from STL please? Most of our employee information and policies are on the intranet, so you can cross refer to this wherever necessary when drafting. For any issues requiring approval (eg holiday etc) can just refer to this being approved by \"your manager" when preparing the contract. Thanks a lot for your help with this. Penny HR Director, ScienceTech Limited Appendix 2 Precedent [On headed notepaper of employer] Section 1 Statement of Terms of Employment [EMPLOYEES NAME AND ADDRESS] [DATE] Dear [EMPLOYEE'S NAME] Statement of terms of employment This letter is a statement of the terms of your employment as required by section 1 ofthe Employment Rights Act 1996. 1. START OF YOUR EMPLOYMENT WITH [EMPLOYER] 1.1 Your employer is [EMPLOYER'S NAME] (Company). 1.2 Your employment with us [commences 0R commenced] on [DATE]. 2. JOB TITLE You are employed as [JOB TITLE] and report to [NAME]. 3. PLACE OF WORK 3.1 Your normal place of work is [LOCATION]. 4. SALARY Your [basic] salary is [AMOUNT] per year which shall accrue from day to day at a rate of 11260 of your annual salary and be payable [monthly] in arrears [on or about the [DATE] of each month] directly into your bank or building society account. 5. HOURS OF WORK Your normal hours of work are between [I'IME] and [I'IME], [Mondays] to [Fridays] inclusive, with a lunch break of one hour. You may be required to work such additional hours as are necessary for the proper performance of your duties without extra remuneration. 6. HOLIDAYS 6.1 You are entitled to [NUMBER] days' paid holiday during each holiday year. [l'his includes OR In addition you are entitled to take] [the usual] public holidays [in England and Wales]] [or a clay in lieu where we require you to work on a public holiday]. The Company's holiday year runs between [DATE] and [DATE]. If your employment starts or nishes part way through the holiday year, your holiday entitlement during that year shall be calculated on a prorata basis [rounded up to the nearest [whole OR half] day]. 6.2 Holiday dates must be agreed by [POSITION] in writing in advance. We may require you to take holiday on specific days which will be notified to you. 6.3 You cannot carry untaken holiday entitlement forward from one holiday year to the following holiday year [except as set out in our holidays policy which is available [on the intranet OR from [POSITION]] OR unless you have been prevented from taking it in the relevant holiday year by one of the following: a period of sickness absence or statutory maternity leave, paternity, adoption, parental or shared parental leave. In cases of sickness absence, carry-over is limited to four weeks' holiday per year less any leave taken during the leave year that hasjust ended. Any such carried over holiday which is not taken within eighteen months of the end of the relevant holiday year will be lost]. 6.4 We shall not pay you in lieu of untaken holiday except on termination of employment. The amount of such payment in lieu shall be [1/260th of your [fulltime equivalent] salary for each untaken day of your entitlement OR as set out in our holidays policy which is available [on the intranet OR from [POSITION]]]. 6.5 If you have taken more holiday than your accrued entitlement at the date your employment terminates, we shall be entitled to deduct the excess holiday pay from any payments due to you [calculated at 1/260th of your [full-time equivalent] salary] for each excess day. 7. IN CAPACITY 7.1 If you are absent from work due to incapacity you must notify [POSITION] of the reason for your absence as soon as possible but no later than [I'IME] on the end of the rst day of absence. 7.2 In all cases of absence, a self-certification form, which is available [on the Company's intranet OR from [POSITION]], must be completed on your return to work and supplied to [POSITION]. For any period of incapacity which lasts for seven consecutive days or more a doctor's certificate stating the reason for absence must be obtained and supplied to [POSITION]. Further certificates must be obtained if the absence continues for longer than the period of the original certificate. 7.3 If you are absent from work for more than [three] days by reason of incapacity and you satisfy the relevant requirements, you will be entitled to statutory sick pay. Your qualifying days for statutory sick pay purposes are [Monday] to [Friday]. 8. TERMINATION AND NOTICE PERIOD 8.1 Your employment can be terminated by giving the following period[s] of notice: [ ]. 8.2 Nothing in these terms and conditions prevents us from terminating your employment summarily without notice or payment in lieu in the event of gross misconduct or if you commit a serious breach of your obligations as an employee. Please indicate your acceptance of these terms by signing and returning to us the attached copy of this letter. Yours sincerely, For and on behalf of [EMPLOYER] I agree to the above terms [EMPLOYEE]