It is very important to decide what sort of support you need for your charity or social enterprise – is it an employee, a worker or external support from someone self-employed?
Read my full blog post about understanding the differences between an employee, worker and self-employed – where I outline how you might decide what you need – and also what the implications are in terms of the person’s rights under employment law.
Possible implications of not being clear are reflected in the example of a small charity who used a number of sessional workers to provide evening and weekend support over a number of years. The funding for the work they undertook had been withdrawn and so the charity manager had written to them and given them five days’ notice that they were no longer required.
The charity manager had always treated them as casual workers, e.g. they had never received annual leave or sick pay. However, the sessional workers were described as employees in their written agreement with the charity and so the potential risks to the charity were that the sessional workers had:
- The right to claim wrongful dismissal as the charity had not given them the required length of notice of four weeks for termination outlined in the written agreement
- The right to claim unfair dismissal as the charity had not followed a fair and proper procedure for redundancy and dismissal
- The right to claim against the charity for not receiving statutory redundancy pay
Employment paperwork and procedures
As you can see, it is sensible to ensure that your written agreement with your workers/employees reflects best practice and complies with employment legislation to reduce the risk of any misunderstandings, to ensure proper procedures are followed and to avoid potentially expensive claims made to an employment tribunal.