The great fixed-term contract debate

[SueEllen]

In myline of work (seeusername) I am amazed that some clients have agency workers in for years on end when fixed term contracts would be cheaper. It all depends on the market, while there are agency roles I will take them but if client councils wake up and smell the coffee one day I will have to take whatever I can get. One place has tried offering bank roles offering pathetic rates, half way up the permanent scale, needless to say noone has bitten afaik.

Employment rights and unions.

If you have someone on a fixed term contract then they can claim certain employment rights i.e. if you bin them and it wasn't due to proven performance issues you have to ensure there is no job they could possibly do within 3 months of leaving. You have to ensure the pay meets minimum wage and can't do sneaky things like making them self-employed.

Plus anything where unions could get involved is messy.

[socialworker]

I thought under 2years you had no rights apart from race/sex discrimination? They can always put in a probationary period to weed out the hopeless.

[SueEllen]

I thought under 2years you had no rights apart from race/sex discrimination? They can always put in a probationary period to weed out the hopeless.

But why take that risk?

If you hire someone as a temp through an agency they can do work for you for years and years, and the risk of them going after you for unfair dismissal or redundancy is extremely small. Plus they less likely to bother to join a union decreasing the risk further.....

[socialworker]

To me the daftest thing is when they use two middlemen, an agency and something called Comensura that adds very little value as far as I can see. I did a bit of recruitment at one stage and Comensura produced candidates that were entirely outside the spec. Usless parasites but they have persuaded some gullible councils to use them.

[Andy Hallett]

I thought under 2years you had no rights apart from race/sex discrimination? They can always put in a probationary period to weed out the hopeless.

That changed a few years ago to 1 year.

[Old Greg]

https://www.gov.uk/fixed-term-contra...dterm-contract



They are not contracts as we see them so shouldn't really be considered on here. Closer to a perm contract than what we know. It's just the term 'contract' in the title that gets us looking but we shouldn't. It's a temporary perm contract and nothing more.

I know BUPA use them have two friends, one was taken on after the 4 years, the other one binned. 4 years at a company not knowing if you have a solid job and then get binned at the point they have to tell you your perm. Just a disgrace!

It is very common for project jobs to be FTC in the public sector as they are funded by capital funding rather than revenue funding. Organisations are unable to take on a permanent permie for capital funded posts, so project staff tend to be on 1 /2 / 3 year FTCs and may be made redundant at the end. It is part of the reason why most of my work is in London: a decent PM is not going to work on a FTC in London on 35k p.a. The real shame is that there are often excellent operational managers who could be trained into a PM role, but they won't give up their permie role for a FTC. It's a mess, really.

[mudskipper]

Client co have some people on these, with permie pay rates. But they are treated as contractors - identified on their badges/email as 'cont', and AFAIK, excluded from permie company presentations etc. Very odd.

[SueEllen]

Client co have some people on these, with permie pay rates. But they are treated as contractors - identified on their badges/email as 'cont', and AFAIK, excluded from permie company presentations etc. Very odd.

How long have they been at the client?

[Old Greg]

Employment rights and unions.

If you have someone on a fixed term contract then they can claim certain employment rights i.e. if you bin them and it wasn't due to proven performance issues you have to ensure there is no job they could possibly do within 3 months of leaving. You have to ensure the pay meets minimum wage and can't do sneaky things like making them self-employed.

Plus anything where unions could get involved is messy.

The way it works in the NHS is that when a FTC employee is coming to the end of their contract, they may or may not be given a new contract depending on whether their role is still needed. If there is new contract, they will be given priority to apply for any roles over a certain time period (can't remember how long). If they are unsuccessful they will be made redundant.

[masonryan]

Perhaps if some new skill or experience was being gained, I would consider a FTC.