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New Employees

Key Information

Whilst you can make an offer of employment verbally or in writing, legally all employees must have a written statement of main terms and conditions of employment. This is known as the contract of employment and is usually linked to the Staff Handbook and job description to create the full contract of employment.

There are certain things that the employment contract should contain which are below – Some are called “express terms”, and some are “implied terms”:

  • The legal right to be paid at least the national minimum wage (What is the minimum wage - National Minimum Wage - Acas)
  • The right to at least 5.6 weeks annual leave per year which is inclusive of bank holidays (How much holiday you should get - Holiday entitlement - Acas).
  • The hours the employee is expected to work. This should be a maximum of 48 hours per week, however there is a template “opt-out” form under the templates section (The 48-hour weekly maximum - Working time rules - Acas)
  • The location from where the work should be undertaken
  • Rules surrounding sick pay, maternity, paternity, adoption and other family leave (Time off work for parents | Acas)
  • The start date (This may be different in the case of TUPE transfers, in which a person’s seniority date will be earlier than their start date with you. This is covered in the Leavers section)
  • Whether the contract is permanent, fixed term, or casual (also known as a zero hours contract)
  • Details of the Pension Scheme (Set up and manage a workplace pension scheme: Employers and eligible staff - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk))
  • Any other working policies that the employee must adhere to (Staff handbook), particularly disciplinaries, grievances, anti-discrimination (Equal Opportunities and Positive Working Policy), Health and Safety policy and more.
  • The details of the employee’s job title and role (Job description)
  • Probation period details, including what happens if the employee fails their probation
  • Notice period for both employee and employer
  • Details of any collective agreements
  • Any Data protection information relevant to the employee’s personal data
  • Any clauses related to variations to terms and conditions during employment

By law you must carry out right to work checks on the first day of employment with your new employee. You should notify the employee in advance that you will need these documents on their first day or they will not be able to start working. This is a list of the acceptable documents for this check.

For Safer Recruitment and anything relating to Safeguarding please visit the Parish Safeguarding Resources page.

 

Equality Act and other Employment legislation

As an employer you must not discriminate against employees, including employees who have a “protected characteristic” in law. The characteristics that are protected by the Equality Act 2010 are:

  • Age
  • Disability
  • Gender reassignment 
  • Marriage and civil partnership
  • Pregnancy and maternity
  • Race
  • Religion or belief
  • Sex
  • Sexual orientation

Having good Grievance and Disciplinary policies in place is a legal requirement, but it also helps you to have a process to tackle events of misconduct in relation to this. ACAS grievance and disciplinary policies are the gold standard that employment tribunals consider whether an employee has been treated fairly. In the templates below, there are also template grievance and disciplinary policies which the DBF use, which are based on the ACAS templates.

On 26th October 2024, the government passed a new law requiring that employers take ALL reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment at work. The details of this are included in the template policy "Equal Opportunities and Positive Working", and you can find this in the list of policies below, which you can download and adapt to your Parish. This also includes sexual harassment by third parties to your employees. Below is a fact sheet on sexual harassment which you can amend, along with a poster that you should display in your office, visible to all staff. You can create your own poster if you wish to.

Another thing to note is that from 6th April 2026, where someone makes a whistleblowing disclosure about sexual harassment that has either occured or is likely to occur AND it is in the public interest, they will be protected from dismissal or detriment. This is detailed in the Whistleblowing policy in the templates section below.

You can download these 2 documents here:

I would also recommend that you give any contractors a copy of the fact sheet prior to commencing work for you so that they understand what sexual harassment is. On the "Recruitment" page, there are two documents which you can adapt when using Contractors or Third Parties. These can also be downloaded here:

 

There are some other laws which you should also be aware of. These are detailed below. Click on each link to understand more about the act to ensure that you treat your employees lawfully:

 

Templates you can download to adapt and use 

Below are copies of the Staff Handbook and other policies which you can adapt to suit your own organisation. There are also template offer letters and employment contracts (Statement of Main Terms and Conditions), plus everything you will need to set up an employee on your HR/Payroll system.

Also below, are copies of induction and probation templates which will help you to provide support and guidance through a good induction and probation period. If you have any questions, please speak to the HR Advisor Simone Smith.

Handbook and Policies

Contractual Documents

 

 

 

New Employee documents

Induction and Probation

 

Disclaimer: These templates are provided to help you and are based on good practice detailed by the Cipd and ACAS which are the professional bodies in relation to Employment Law matters. We use these at the DBF however we accept no liability for your use or amendment of these templates.

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