By Arina Smith
When you’re working for an employer, it’s incredibly important that you take the time to learn what kind of contract you’re working under. This is because every aspect of your working life will be defined by this contract, whether that’s how you’re getting paid and the number of hours you’re working, to what benefits you’ll receive.
This can vary from company to company, but to help keep you in the know, here are five types of employment contract you may fall under and what this means for you.
1. Continuous Employment Contract:
This is the most common type of employment contract and will be one where you go into a company, get a job, and you’re employed to work there indefinitely.
After working for a set number of months (or other predetermined amount of time), you’ll be able to receive legal benefits, such as maternity leave, redundancy money and the ability to work flexible hours. Sick pay and other similar benefits should also be included.
2. Fixed-Term Contracts:
Fixed-term contracts are very similar to continuous employment contracts, but you’ll only be working for a predetermined amount of time. This could be in weeks, months or years. When the end date is reached, you will no longer work for that company.
Depending on how long your contract is, you may be liable for some benefits or legal requirements. If you’re working with the company for three years, many of the benefits may be similar to a continuous employment contract.
3. Gig Contracts:
This kind of contract is one where you’re employed by a company, but most of the time, you won’t receive any benefits from the company. This is because you’re worked and paid by the gigs (jobs) you complete.
For example, Uber runs on gig contracts because people can work as much or as little as they like and get paid per job. Uber simply take a percentage and allow the workers to use their brand. This is the same with freelancing jobs online and jobs like food delivery services.
4. Zero Hours Contract Staff:
This is an increasingly common form of employment contract where you work similar to a continuous employment contract except the employer is not tied into giving you any number of set hours. Whereas some contracts may require a 40-hour week, these contracts are zero.
This means you might get 80-hours some weeks, and zero the next; it’s underdetermined. However, depending on your contract or how many hours you work, you could be entitled to benefits and different forms of company payments
5. Freelancer Contracts:
As a freelancer, you will tend to work for yourself or another company but within a third company. While working for this company, you are employed as far as you provide a service that you’re paid for, but this is it.
There are not liable to provide you any benefits, such as holiday, sick or maternity pay, since this is something either you yourself or the company that actually employs you will provide.
Summary:
As you can see, there are lots of different job types and employment contract out there, and it’s so important to make sure you know which one you’re entering into when you take a job.
If you ever need legal help or advice when starting a job, or a contract is being messed around, check out Joel Fremstad who may be able to help.
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