Labour

The Commencement Of The Employment Relationship

There may be confusion as to when the employment relationship between the employer and the employee actually commence. The confusion is more around whether the employment relationship is being established at the undersigning of the employment contract, the offer of employment made to the applicant or the appointment letter issued by the employer. However, the question remains as to when this employment relationship actually commences. The definition of an employee according to the Labour...

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Double Jeopardy – When Can Employers Have Two Bites Of The Cherry?

An overview of circumstances permitting fair deviation from the principle of double jeopardy Double jeopardy is the generally accepted principle adopted from criminal law and applied in employment law, that dictates that an employee cannot be disciplined twice for an offence which he / she has been found guilty or acquitted of. The standard to which employers are held in convening disciplinary enquiries is that of fairness, which is to be viewed from the perspectives of both employers and...

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Five things you can do today to improve your business’s HR function

#1: Sort out your employment contracts Ensure you have a proper and relevant employment contract on record for each employee in your service. #2: Back up your data and files to the cloud If you don’t already have one, you must get a proper cloud-based storage solution for all your HR documentation, employee misconduct records, personnel files, and other administrative records. #3: Add a careers@yourbusiness email address to your website footer A simple step such as a dedicated...

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The Employers Guide to: Writing An Employment Reference

Employers are often unsure about how to write an employment reference - what to say, what not to say and what can be said. Employment references play a significant role in the labour market, given the fact that there are currently more prospective job applicants than employment opportunities. In this guide: What is an employment reference?What should be on an employment reference? (list)What is its purpose?What's the purpose of a probation period?What must you write in a reference? 1. Is an...

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Online trading platform to assist SMMEs

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently launched an online trading platform which will link registered small, medium and micro enterprises' (SMMEs) access to supply chain opportunities of large South African corporations that have an integrated global footprint. The platform - called the Business Leadership South Africa Connect - was launched in conjunction with the SA SME CEO Fund Circle.  In a statement, the Presidency said the online portal will promote supplier diversity and the inclusion...

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Automatic Termination of Employment Contracts – Not So Automatic

The use of a fixed-term contract to regulate the termination of an employment relationship, is legally acceptable and can be used where the nature of the employee’s work is for a limited duration or for a specific project. Employers sometimes include an automatic termination clause, whereby the fixed-term contract automatically terminates upon the occurrence of a specific event – usually the termination of the project with the client of the employer. It is essential to consider Section 198B of...

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A better understanding of Incompatibility

Incompatibility is a term that is rare, vague and uncertain in our law as it is not mentioned as a possible ground or reason for dismissal in terms of Section 188 of Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (LRA). According to Christianson (2002: 163), incompatibility has been defined as the inability on the part of the employee to work in harmony within the corporate culture of the business or with fellow employees (1994: 285-6). Grogan (2003: 277) similarly defines incompatibility as follows:...

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Proving Your Case: Know Your Elements Of Misconduct

Proving an employee’s guilt to a specific offense is like baking a cake: If you don’t put in the right ingredients, the cake will flop. To know which ingredients you must put in, you must have a recipe, which tells you exactly what, and how much off a certain ingredient is needed. Similarly, in the Labour Law, a specific misconduct requires specific elements to be proven to find an employee guilty on a balance of probabilities. Therefore, if an employer does not know what the specific...

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