If you are like most people, you will barely consider much more than the pay and benefits before saying ‘yes’ to a job offer. However there are a few points worth bearing in mind before deciding where to spend the next few years of your life.

• You may receive an employment contract along with the offer letter, or you may simply get an offer letter and nothing else. Your employer must provide you with a written statement of certain terms of employment within two months of the beginning of your employment including your start date, pay, working hours, sick pay if applicable, pension if applicable, disciplinary & grievance procedure & notice period.

If your employer does not do this you should certainly ask your employer for a statement of your terms of employment and a Tribunal can make a declaration of those terms if your employer won’t.

• Hopefully you will get paid more than the National Minimum Wage (NMW) which for workers aged 22 & over is currently £4.85 per hour and for workers aged 18-21 is £4.10. £4.10 also applies to workers aged 22 and above during their first 6 months in a new job who are receiving accredited training. If you are not receiving at least the NMW, you have a problem.
  
• Your employer will make deductions of tax and national insurance from your pay, but what else can they deduct? With a few exceptions, employers can only make deductions from your pay if you have given your consent in writing. So if you accidentally ruin your computer, your employer can only deduct the cost of replacement if it is covered by your contract (and which you have signed) or if otherwise you give your consent in writing. Check your contract carefully to see what deductions you consent to being made.
  
• If your contract specifies that you may be required to work anywhere in the UK or indeed abroad, it would be worth querying whether this is at all likely. A request months later for you to relocate may or may not be reasonable.
  
• It’s quite common to see a clause in an employment contract stating that you will work a basic 37 hour week plus such additional hours as may be required for the proper performance of your duties. This means that you employer can require you to work additional hours without additional pay. There is no entitlement to paid overtime or time off in lieu unless your contract says so.

However under the Working Time Regulations, in most jobs your employer should ensure that you do not work more than a 48 hour week, as averaged over a 17 week period. This means that you can be asked to work 90 hours one week, as long as the average over the 17 week period does not exceed 48. Working Time can include being ‘on call’ and travel (other than your normal commute)

In the UK employees can opt out of the maximum working week, and you may well see a clause in your contract asking you to do so. However you can opt back in at any time, though you may have to give up to three months notice.

• On the subject of working time, remember that you are normally entitled to a rest period of 11 consecutive hours in each 24 hour working period, and an uninterrupted rest period of at least 24 hours in each seven day working period. Employers cannot ask you to opt out of this requirement.

Strangely enough, there is no statutory entitlement to a lunch break as such, though adult workers are entitled to a rest break of at least 20 minutes after working six hours.

• It is fairly standard for employers to offer full time employees twenty or more days paid holiday per annum plus paid bank holidays. However the statutory entitlement is only to four weeks paid holiday per annum, including public holidays, so anything on top is a bonus.
  
• Many employers will offer a certain number of days sick pay per year at your normal rate of pay. However this is not a statutory right. Some employers only pay Statutory Sick Pay (currently about £100 pw) and which only kicks in after the third day of absence. Other employers make anything on top purely ‘discretionary’.
  
• Employers with five or more employees must generally offer you at least a ‘stake-holder’ pension scheme. However there is no obligation on the employer to pay into the pension scheme on your behalf, and it is up to you to decide whether to make payments yourself. Anything that your employer offers on top is a bonus, though you would be wise to get independent financial advice on this important area.
  
• It’s not uncommon for contracts to specify that employees must give and receive notice of between 1 & 3 months nowadays. The statutory entitlement is to one week’s notice once you’ve been employed at least a month and if you’ve been employed over two years, you have the statutory entitlement to one weeks notice for each full year worked to a maximum of 12 weeks.

If there is a ‘garden leave’ clause in your contract, this means that your employer can keep you at home if you give notice, effectively out of harms way if you work in a sensitive role, but you remain bound by all other terms of your employment (such as fidelity etc) for the length of your notice period. Garden leave clauses are often invoked if you resign to go off to a competitor.

• If you work closely with clients, or work with sensitive information, there will probably be not only a confidentiality clause in your contract but a clause seeking to limit what work you take up after you leave. ‘Post termination restrictions’ are only enforceable if they are reasonable in terms and scope to protect legitimate business interests. A clause which tries to stop you working for a competitor anywhere in the UK is unlikely to be enforceable, but a clause stopping you offering services to existing clients for a period may be. These clauses are particularly important to think about if your marketability depends on your contacts.

Good luck with your new job!

Caroline Walker 020 7544 5625 carolinew@sghlaw.com