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I always favoured asking whether the referee would be happy to re-employ the prospective employee, rather than asking if (s)he was good. Also, as a recruiter, it is important to ask questions about punctuality, attitude to the work and a whole raft of other questions that are designed to determine whether said prospective employee will be an asset to the company. Theoretically, these references should be obtained in writing. I am not sure of the legality of a verbal reference, but am fairly sure that you should make a record of them that can be made available to the applicant so that you can prove equality of opportunity, if only to cover your own back as a recruiter. This is what it all comes down to in the end: equality of opportunity. The law heavily favours the employee and applicant these days, assuming that they are willing to pursue issues through the courts or tribunals and the onus is on the employer to be seen to be fair. That is one reason why you will see more and more application forms rather than CVs; to ensure that all people have the same chance of demonstrating their abilities on paper. Another reason is that it is easier to compare people if their details are in the same format. CVs vary wildly in quality and content. The down side to this is that the recruitment process can take a lot longer. One council unit I worked for had a two to three month lead in to recruitment because of the council's recruitment policy. This meant that the unit could not take people on at short notice and therefore that the unit was particularly reluctant to lay people off and would carry people through the lean times by giving them odd jobs round the unit such as basic maintenance rather than get rid of them, especially when the redundancy process also took about two to three months to go through. As a result, the unit had a large number or people who had been there for many years. As I recall, the minimum contract length on starting was 3 or 6 months.
One thing that worries me is this talk about one or two week contracts. Do units still do that? And if so, how do they survive? Or is it that they just ignore the employment laws and hope that no one will take them to court?
Cheers,
Eggbasket
Eggy by name, eggy by nature
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Quote:quote:One thing that worries me is this talk about one or two week contracts. Do units still do that? And if so, how do they survive? Or is it that they just ignore the employment laws and hope that no one will take them to court?
That's exactly what they do, but so far no-one has had the guts to take them to a tribunal. They haven't yet made the mistake of hiring me though. When they do... watch out.
Regarding the Statutory Dismissal Procedure, I'll have to do some research but most legal firms who do employment law have a section on the new law advising all employers to take the new law very seriously.
As I understand it it is designed to reduce the number of cases taken to tribunal, by forcing an employer to go through a formal process of notification followed by meetings with any employee who is being dismissed. This includes employees on short term contracts who then don't have the contract renewed. If the employer fails to follow all the steps laid out he is automatically in breach and the dismissal will be judged as wrongful by a tribunal. If the case went to tribunal on other grounds the breach will increase the payout to the employee by 50% I believe.
There is some doubt about whether this applies to new employees or only those with a years service,
but many of the legal websites are advising employers to abide by it in
all cases.
I'd be very surprised if many archaeologists have gone through this process at the end of a contract. I reckon it just needs a couple of precedents to go through the courts for units to start panicking and re-thinking their employment policy. Anyone out there been wrongfully dismissed and not gone through the Statutory Notification Procedure? It could be a very good way of improving the length of contracts if not the pay.
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I can see where this is going but, when or how do we ever get a full years employment, when we get finished after every job??
Does this mean that this legislation will never apply to us?
deep
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It's not clear that you do need a years service. I think it just needs a test case.
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Just checked the DTI website and it confirms that 1 years service is needed before the Statutory Dismissal Procedure applies. Bummer:face-confused:
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I've never actually ever had a contract except once when I worked for a uni excavation unit that followed the universities employment rules
Lucy
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Tiz where I`m at at the moment Lucy, Universities and Council units tend to be good when it comes to contracts. In my humble experience, I guess that around 80% of units don`t bother with contracts. Can be a good thing...nowt worse than having to work a month`s notice when desperate to escape a team of muppets! Also useful when explaining to the Student Loan Company just how tenuous our positions are...Go to bed Lucy!
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Yep could'nt agree more, I've never had an actual contract, except for the terms of work that a slave driver tried to get me to sign this year. What a joke!!
deep
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This new BAJR document may be of interest... it is not up on the site yet.. but you can read it here
http://www.bajr.org/Documents/Employed_SelfEmployed.pdf
One of the next things that I will join people in trying to deal with is employment laws and the misuse of them on archaeological sites.
If you were dismissed without being given the legal notice you are entitled to, then the dismissal date is counted as the day that your notice would have run out. So if, for example you were entitled to two weeks notice, and your employer told you that you are dismissed with immediate effect on 2 June, you need to add two weeks to that date to work out your actual length of employment. So in this example, your employment would be treated as ending on 16 June because you are entitled to two weeks notice.
The required legal minimum notice is:-
one week if you have been employed for at least one month but less than two years
two weeks if you have been employed for two years
three weeks for three years, and so on up to twelve weeks. After twelve years service, the statutory notice period is twelve weeks.
Another day another WSI?
