Why Use the Design Contracts Pack?
You are your workforce so you need to get your staff documents right. The lawyers at Charles Russell are experts in their field and they have been advising designers on how to manage that workforce for years.

As well as the massive increase in employment legislation, claims are growing in number – recent statistics show that in 2003/2004 there was a 17% increase in employees taking their employers to a tribunal. You can’t afford to rely on informal hand-shakes and verbal agreements any more. It is vital to your business that the correct paperwork is in place because:

The law requires that all employees are given a written statement of terms and conditions (contract of employment). If an employer fails to do so, the employee can bring a claim in a tribunal and may be awarded between two and four weeks’ pay.

By putting the right documents in place, both you and your workforce will be clear about what everybody’s entitlements are. This will help to prevent any misunderstandings or ambiguities between you and your workforce which could otherwise result in spurious claims. If there is no paperwork in place, there may be disputes as to whether an individual is an ‘employee’ or a ‘worker’, a crucial distinction because ‘employees’ have far more statutory rights (e.g. unfair dismissal, redundancy
payments).

New statutory disciplinary and grievance procedures came into force on 1 October 2004. You must provide these procedures in writing to all employees. Also, you have to make sure the procedures are followed if an employee raises a grievance, if you need to take disciplinary action against an employee or if you have to dismiss them, whatever the reason.

Failure to follow the steps can lead to automatic unfair dismissal and increase your financial liability in any tribunal claim.

Part-time workers and fixed-term employees are entitled to the same pay and benefits as full-time staff. Your business must ensure that their contracts reflect this, if not, you will be at risk of a substantial and potentially unlimited claim.

Who needs what?
There are a number of different ways of employing people: freelancers, consultants as well as employees. Your business needs to be clear about who is entitled to what and what needs to go into any contract with them.

How does it cover me?
So that you know where you stand, we have set out exactly what the terms of the Design Contracts pack are and what cover is provided.

First thing to say is that we are providing an off the shelf product rather than ongoing legal services.

Second, provided you use all the updates and follow the explanatory notes, in normal circumstances, you will meet the legal requirements current at the time. If you are unclear or the circumstances are unusual, we recommend you take separate legal advice.

Third point, we don’t advise you use the Design Contracts pack for senior executives or directors of the business. We can help you separately with this.

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