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Not providing correct contract information is now a criminal offence
Since March 1st 2019 an employer can be fined £5,000 on each count or be sentenced to up to twelve months in prison for failing to provide employees with the correct contract information. [Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018]. An employer can be fined on more than one count and could face claims from multiple employees.
Employers have a defence if they can show they took reasonable steps to provide the right information
It is a defence under the Act for the employer to demonstrate that they exercised due diligence and took reasonable precautions to ensure that the Act was complied with.
Individual managers, directors, employees and shadow directors now personally liable
Even though staff are employed by a company, not only is the company liable but a director, manager, secretary, any other officer of the company or anyone purporting to act for the company could be made personally liable. This even covers people who may not have an official position in the company but who are deemed to be “shadow directors” because in reality they make the real decisions in the company.
Fines up to 4% of turnover under the Data Protection Act 2018
Failure of a company to protect personal data or manage it correctly can now result in fines to a company up to €20million or 4% of turnover. Part of managing this risk is making sure that your contracts and policies are updated to deal with the issues correctly and give the correct notifications.
Contract Cleaning companies the worst offenders
In 2017 the Workplace Relations Commission inspected contract cleaning companies and found that 78% of them were in breach of their legal obligations to provide proper employment documentation.
The Solution
To ensure that contract cleaning companies are compliant with their duties, Solomon Business Services has prepared administrative tools to enable in-house employees with no training in HR to properly administer the issuing of contracts from the outset themselves so that claims do not arise:
- Draft template contracts with all the required terms to comply with the Employment Regulation Orders for the Contract Cleaning Joint Labour Committee) and the Terms of Employment Information Acts. Drafted by barristers with particular expertise in employment law;
- Linked and formatted database system so that contracts can be customised and issued in-house for each employee by the inputting of only 30 data entries;
- Customisation of contracts for your particular company.
- Training and advice from legally qualified facilitators on-site for your employees to set up and administer the system.
Contact Patricia on: number