Anthony Gold

Get in touch

020 7940 4060

  • People
  • Insights
  • What to Expect
  • Contact Us
Anthony Gold
  • Services
    • Housing And Property Disputes
      • Property Disputes
      • Leasehold Services
      • Services For Commercial Landlords, Tenants And Agents
      • Services For Residential Landlords And Agents
      • Housing And Tenancy Issues
      • Judicial Review
    • Injury And Medical Claims
      • Life Changing Injuries
      • Medical Claims
      • Personal Injury
      • Child Abuse
    • Family And Relationships
      • Starting Relationships
      • Ending Relationships
      • After Relationships End
      • Useful Contacts
      • Religious & Cultural Issues
      • Family Law FAQs
      • Family Dispute Resolution
      • Modern Families And Surrogacy Arrangements
    • Conveyancing, Property & Business Services
      • Business Agreements
      • Business Disagreements
      • Commercial Property
      • Commercial Property Disputes
      • Leasehold Services
      • Residential Property
    • Wills, Estates & Court Of Protection
      • Wills, Trusts And Estates
      • Claims Against Trusts And Estates
      • Capacity And Court Of Protection
    • Dispute Resolution & Employment Law
      • Personal Claims
      • Professional Negligence
      • Business Disagreements
      • Claims Against Trusts And Estates
      • Employment
    • People
    • Insights
    • What to Expect
    • Contact Us
  • Get in touch

    020 7940 4060

  • Housing and Property Disputes
  • Injury and Medical Claims
  • Family and Relationships
  • Conveyancing, Property & Business Services
  • Wills, Estates & Court of Protection
  • Dispute Resolution & Employment Law
  • Property disputes
  • Ownership disputes and shares in property
  • Challenging the decisions of councils and public bodies
  • Rights of way, boundaries, covenants and easements
  • Party wall disputes
  • Leasehold services
  • Lease extension
  • Collective enfranchisement
  • Service charge disputes
  • Repairs to leaseholds
  • Right to manage
  • Services for commercial landlords, tenants and agents
  • Breach of covenant
  • Forfeiture and recovery of possession
  • Dilapidations and failing to repair
  • Lease renewals
  • Services for residential landlords and agents
  • Regulatory issues
  • Repossession
  • Agents (including letting agreements)
  • Housing and tenancy issues
  • Repairs
  • Repossession and eviction
  • Rehousing and homelessness
  • Judicial review
  • Life changing injuries
  • Brain injury
  • Spinal cord injury
  • Amputation
  • Psychiatric injury
  • Fatal injuries and inquests
  • Medical claims
  • Surgical claims
  • Non-Surgical Claims
  • Birth injury
  • Child health and paediatrics
  • GP and primary care treatment
  • Private healthcare
  • Personal injury
  • Road traffic accidents
  • Accidents abroad
  • Accidents at work
  • Faulty products
  • Public liability and other accidents
  • Child abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Starting relationships
  • Pre nuptial agreements
  • Pre civil partnership and same sex relationship agreements
  • Cohabitation and living together agreements
  • Property ownership agreements
  • Ending relationships
  • Divorce and separation
  • Ending a civil partnership
  • Ending cohabitation
  • Agreeing child arrangements
  • Agreeing finance and assets
  • International arrangements
  • After relationships end
  • Abduction and leave to remove children
  • Changing and challenging parenting agreements
  • Changing and challenging financial agreements
  • Grandparents’ rights
  • Useful Contacts
  • Financial planners
  • Referral to Pension Actuaries and Pension on Divorce Experts (PODEs)
  • Tax Specialists
  • Financial Neutrals
  • Counselling
  • Conveyancing
  • Wills
  • Religious & cultural issues
  • Jewish family law
  • Islamic family law
  • Family Law FAQs
  • Children FAQs
  • Cohabitation Agreement FAQs
  • No-Fault Divorce and Separation FAQs
  • Financial Issues FAQs
  • Pre-Marital Contracts FAQs
  • Family Dispute Resolution
  • Roundtable Meetings
  • One Solicitor Solution
  • Mediation
  • Collaborative Practice
  • Arbitration
  • Second Opinions
  • Private FDR’s
  • Early Neutral Evaluation (‘ENE’)
  • Modern Families and Surrogacy Arrangements
  • Domestic Surrogacy
  • International Surrogacy
  • Business agreements
  • Business advice
  • Employment
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Supplier contracts
  • Business disagreements
  • Commercial property
  • Commercial Sale and Purchases
  • Commercial loans and mortgages
  • Property Investment: plot developers & plot buyers
  • Auction: sales and purchases
  • Commercial advice for landlords and tenants
  • Planning advice
  • Mortgage debentures and securities
  • Commercial property disputes
  • Breach of covenant
  • Dilapidations and failing to repair
  • Forfeiture and recovery of possession
  • Lease renewals
  • Leasehold services
  • Lease extension
  • Collective enfranchisement
  • Service charge disputes
  • Repairs to leaseholds
  • Right to manage
  • Residential property
  • Residential Sale and Purchases
  • Property Investment: plot developers & plot buyers
  • Remortgages
  • Auction: sales and purchases
  • Ownership matters and transfers
  • Wills, trusts and estates
  • Making a will
  • Applying for probate
  • Distributing the estate
  • Arranging lasting power of attorney
  • Trust advice
  • Tax planning and advice
  • Claims against trusts and estates
  • Contesting a will
  • Losses caused by trustees
  • Capacity and court of protection
  • Appointing a deputy
  • Removing a deputy
  • Arranging lasting power of attorney
  • Gifts and legacies
  • Managing assets under a deputyship
  • Care issues
  • Removing lasting and enduring power of attorney
  • Special educational needs
  • Capacity and court of protection
  • Personal claims
  • Debt recovery
  • Ownership disputes and shares in property
  • Civil and commercial mediation
  • Building disputes
  • Professional negligence
  • Professional Negligence
  • Property Fraud
  • Investment Fraud
  • Business disagreements
  • Building disputes
  • Civil and commercial mediation
  • Claims against directors
  • Contract disputes
  • Debt recovery
  • Directors personal liabilities
  • Employment
  • Professional negligence
  • Claims against trusts and estates
  • Contesting a will
  • Losses caused by trustees
  • Employment
  • Employment
  • Unfair or Wrongful Dismissal
  • Settlement Agreements
Anthony Gold > Blog > 5 clauses that you did not realise you NEED in your employment contract

Inbar Rabinovitz

inbar.rabinovitz@anthonygold.co.uk

Share
  • January 5, 2022
  • Blog
  • By  Inbar Rabinovitz 
  • 0 comments

5 clauses that you did not realise you NEED in your employment contract


Employment contracts are necessary. We are big advocates of them for a whole host of reasons (and you can read about it here —link to the previous post if we post it —).

However, we have no compiled a list of five clauses that you may not think about having in your contracts of employment but that are absolutely necessary, and why.

1. Garden leave and / or pay in lieu of notice clause

It is not nice to think that sometimes, a business will take on employees and they may not work out for one reason or another. You will have the right to terminate the contract for one of the fair reasons for terminating employment, and your contracts will include the required notice period. We are talking about a step further – an added clauses or two that gives you the right to terminate the person’s employment, giving the right notice, but being able to pay it in lieu of them working in one way or another. There are so many reasons why an employer should want to reserve those rights, for example if they are concerned about having a disgruntled employee working their notice when they know they are leaving.

    • Pay in lieu of notice means that their employment is terminated almost immediately when you give notice, but you then pay them what they would have received during their notice period (e.g. 4 weeks’ salary); and
    • Garden leave means that the employee is simply not working but is still employed for the duration of their notice period.

2. Restrictive Covenants

We are still these come up a lot – whether they are in the contract or not. Restrictive covenants are restrictions on a former employee for when they leave the employment and for a period of up to about 6 to 12 months, depending on their position and role within the business. These restrictions can prevent who the employee goes on to work for or how that employment or engagement may be. Why would you want it? Literally to protect the business interests and stopping an employee leaving your employment and potentially jumping straight into a competitors’ arms, enticing your top 5 clients or customers to jump ship with them;

3. Deductions from salary

No, this clause does not confer on you the power that you might think it does. Having it in the contract does not mean that you can shave off part of the employees’ wages each month as and when you might want to. However, it does mean that if there is a reason to deduct money from their wages then you can do just that. A great example is where payroll may have accidentally overpaid an employee, so instead of having to have a lot of back and forth with an employee, having the contractual right to make deductions from their salary means that you can, within reason, deduct the sums from the following pay-check and confirm that to them in writing;

4. Right to work in the United Kingdom

Of course, you would not want to risk the wrath of the Home Office by employing individuals that do not have the legal right to work in the UK. Really, no business wants or should risk the fine of up to £20,000 per person that is employed illegally. While you should have an onboarding process for employees that includes checking that they have the legal documents in place that confirm that they can legally work in the UK, having a contractual requirement stating as much in your contract means that if an employee does later have their right to work in the UK withdrawn for whatever reason or it transpires that something was missed and they do not have the right to work in the UK in the first place, you can rely on that clause to terminate their contract of employment;

5. Lay-off Clause

This one is an underrated clause unless or until the business needs to rely on it. A lay-off clause allows a business to temporarily suspend employees from working, lay them off, without paying their wages. This is not dissimilar to the furlough that we have come to know during the Covid-19 Pandemic except that the payment that the Government gives the employees in this instance is quite minimal and lay-offs are encouraged to be kept to an absolute minimal period where absolutely needed.

You may not have thought about these clauses being needed and you may still be on the fence about whether you should or should not have them, so why not have a no obligations conversation with one of our employment experts to explore your business needs and see what assistance we can offer you.

*Disclaimer: The information on the Anthony Gold website is for general information only and reflects the position at the date of publication. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be treated as such. It is provided without any representations or warranties, express or implied.*

Inbar Rabinovitz

inbar.rabinovitz@anthonygold.co.uk

Get in touch

Call, email or use a contact form – whichever suits you. We’ll let you know the best person to help you get started.

Call or Email

020 7940 4060

mail@anthonygold.co.uk

No comments

Add your comment

We need your name and email address to make sure you’re a real person. We won’t share your email address with anyone else or send you spam. Please complete fields marked with *.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

code

Related Services

  • Employment

  • Settlement Agreements

  • Unfair or Wrongful Dismissal

  • Supplier contracts

About the author

  • Inbar Rabinovitz

Meet the team

  • Employment

You might also like...

  • 5 Reasons how your contract can protect your business

  • Company transactions for SMEs: Removing a Director / Shareholder – Terminating their employment

  • Company Transactions for SMEs: What if a departing Shareholder is also an Employee?

Contact Us

Request a Call Back

About Us

  • Accessibility
  • Compliance
  • Responsible Business
  • Equality & Diversity
  • History
  • Our Beliefs
  • List of LLP members

Careers

  • Trainee Solicitors
  • Vacancies

Social Media

  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • View our YouTube channel

Online Payments

  • Payment page through Worldpay

Accredited by

Lexel Parctice
76000Award

Copyright © Anthony Gold Solicitors LLP. All rights reserved. Anthony Gold Solicitors LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC433560 and is authorised and regulated by the by the Solicitors Regulation Authority with registration Number 810601