Taking holiday - notice periods, restrictions and sickness
In this guide:
- Know how much holiday to give your staff
- Advantages of managing staff holiday entitlement
- Holiday entitlement and statutory holiday pay
- Calculate holiday entitlement and holiday pay
- Calculating holiday entitlement for atypical workers
- Holiday entitlement for employees on statutory family-related leave
- Pay and time off on public and bank holidays
- Taking holiday - notice periods, restrictions and sickness
- Holiday pay on termination of employment
- Managing staff holiday entitlement: five top tips
Advantages of managing staff holiday entitlement
Details the advantages of managing holiday entitlement for workers in your business.
It is beneficial to both your business and your staff if you manage holiday entitlement correctly.
Disagreements over holidays and holiday pay are common if entitlements are not clearly agreed upon and set out in writing. These disagreements could lead to a deterioration in your relationship with your staff and possible complaints to industrial tribunals.
In addition, almost all workers above school leaving age are entitled to statutory paid holiday entitlement, so you should be aware of what this means for your business and manage how it is worked out for each worker.
Advantages of managing staff holiday entitlement
Effectively managing staff holiday entitlement can bring several business benefits:
- Staff who are able to take regular holidays can feel more valued and become more motivated about their work which helps them to perform more effectively.
- Having a break from the workplace ensures staff are less prone to accidents and less likely to suffer from stress because they have regular opportunities to rest.
- Having an annual leave policy and including paid holiday entitlement in employees' employment contracts ensures the rules and processes are clear to everyone. This will help you to take a consistent approach to annual leave across the business so that employees feel they have been treated fairly.
- Having a policy and appropriate procedures in place also minimises the opportunity for disputes. A worker is more likely to be granted an annual leave request if the appropriate procedure has been followed and they have given you sufficient notice of the leave so you can prepare for the absence.
- You should also experience a decrease in sick leave and staff turnover because staff feel more appreciated overall and are less likely to resort to sick leave when they need to take time off work.
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Holiday entitlement and statutory holiday pay
Minimum statutory annual leave entitlement, unused holidays, and how to set these arrangements out in writing.
Almost all workers above school leaving age - not just employees but also, for example, agency and casual workers - are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday per leave year (28 days for a worker working a five or six-day week).
The 5.6 weeks is a minimum holiday entitlement - you can choose to offer more.
You can count any days off for public or bank holidays towards a worker's statutory holiday entitlement - but only as long as you pay them for those days off. See bank and public holiday dates.
Workers below school leaving age must have a two-week break during school holidays. Read more on employing children and young people.
When leave years may start
You may decide to have one date when your business' leave year starts or have different start dates for individual workers (or groups of workers).
If you do not have written leave arrangements, a leave year will start on the date a worker's employment begins and on each subsequent anniversary of that date.
Holiday entitlement: staff working a six-day week
The statutory paid holiday entitlement is capped at 28 days.
Although 5.6 weeks would equal 33.6 days for someone working a six-day week (5.6 x 6), because of the cap, staff working a six-day week are only entitled to 28 days' paid holiday. However, that is the minimum statutory allowance. If you wish you can increase the holiday entitlement under an employee's contract of employment.
Holiday entitlement and the contract of employment
You must set out an employee's paid holiday entitlement in their written statement of terms and conditions of employment.
This should enable them to work out their entitlement and pay for any untaken holiday if they leave. See the employment contract.
Workers not entitled to the statutory minimum paid holiday entitlement
The following types of workers do not have the right to benefit from the minimum paid holiday entitlement:
- The genuinely self-employed, who can take as little or as much holiday as they choose.
- Those whose jobs may conflict with the requirement to take annual leave requirements, eg the armed forces, the police, and those involved in civil protection (these workers have to rely on their contracts of employment for their rights to holiday).
- Workers in some sectors are excluded from the Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016 because they are covered by separate regulations. The entitlement to annual leave of mobile staff working in the civil aviation sector, for example, is governed by the Civil Aviation (Working Time) Regulations 2004.
Carrying over unused paid holiday
A worker may wish to carry over unused holidays from the current leave year to the next.
Under European Union (EU) derived law, a worker must take at least 4 weeks holiday per leave year. If they take less than this, they cannot carry it over.
However, in the UK, the statutory entitlement is 5.6 weeks. What a worker may do with the additional 1.6 weeks depends on their employer's arrangements. You can either:
- have an arrangement that workers must take their full statutory entitlement of 5.6 weeks in any leave year
- allow workers to carry over any of the additional 1.6 weeks that remain untaken into the next leave year - although they must take it by the end of the next leave year
If an employee has an additional contractual entitlement over and above the 5.6 weeks, it again depends on their contract of employment whether or not they can either carry it over or will receive pay in lieu for any of the entitlement that remains untaken.
If you do allow workers to carry over any contractual annual leave entitlement, you can have your own rules on when they must take it. For example, you could state that workers must take the carried-over leave within three months of the start of the next leave year.
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Calculate holiday entitlement and holiday pay
Guidance for employers on how to calculate holiday entitlement, calculate holiday pay, and what to do with untaken leave.
A worker's entitlement to paid annual leave starts on the first day of employment and is not subject to a minimum period of employment.
Holiday entitlement accrual
The Regulations permit an employer to operate a holiday accrual system for workers who are in their first year of employment (only). In practice, this means that a new worker will accrue one-twelfth of their annual holiday entitlement each month they are employed. This will apply from the start of each month.
Calculating holiday pay
For each week of leave accrued, workers are entitled to one week's normal pay. A week's pay is calculated according to the type of work carried out:
- for workers on fixed hours and pay, it equals the amount due for a week's work, averaged over the preceding 12 weeks
- for workers on fixed hours and variable pay (bonus, commission, or piece workers), it equals the average hourly rate (over the preceding 12 weeks) multiplied by the normal working hours in a week
- for shift workers, it equals the average weekly hours of work in the preceding 12 weeks at the average hourly rate
- for workers with no normal working hours, a week's pay is the average pay received over the preceding 12 weeks.
The 12-week reference period should be made up of 12 weeks in which pay was due to the worker. Any week in which no remuneration was payable to the worker should be discounted, as should any weeks where the employee was for any amount of time on sick leave, maternity leave, adoption leave, shared parental leave, parental leave, or paternity leave.
If any weeks are discounted, ie no pay was received for a particular week, or the worker was on statutory leave as outlined above, earlier weeks should be considered until you get as close to 12 weeks as possible. In these circumstances, the maximum period you go back is 24 weeks.
If the worker has been employed for less than 12 weeks, holiday pay is based on the number of complete weeks for which the worker has been employed.
Calculate holiday pay for hourly paid staff
To calculate the average hourly rate, you only count the hours where the worker was working and the pay that related to those hours.
Staff should receive the same pay during any holiday period as they would if they were at work. Therefore, when calculating holiday pay for the 4 weeks of paid holiday leave derived from European law, an employer must include payments which are intrinsically linked to the performance of tasks the employee is obliged to carry out under the terms of the contract. This includes commission, bonuses, regularly paid allowances, and payment for additional hours the employee normally and repeatedly works. Other payments, such as overtime payments regularly paid to the employee should also be included, as should payments for professional or personal status relating to length of service, seniority, or professional qualifications. Employers may decide to extend this calculation to the full 5.6 weeks statutory paid holiday entitlement, but they do not have to.
However, case law has suggested all paid annual leave should be treated as a composite whole where each day of a holiday a worker takes includes, on a fractional basis, the various elements making up their total holiday entitlement (whether they be contractual or statutory). Employers should take this into account when making holiday payments where they are only applying the law on overtime, commission, allowances, bonuses etc (as outlined above) to the 4 weeks of holiday derived from European law to ensure underpayments of holiday pay are avoided.
The question of how much pay a worker is due during a period of holiday can be complex and has been the subject of several court judgments. Further information is available from the LRA Workplace Information Service on Tel 03300 555 300.
Calculate holiday entitlement for your employees.
Payments for untaken statutory holiday
In the UK, the statutory annual leave entitlement is 5.6 weeks. A worker must take at least four weeks' paid holiday per leave year.
What a worker does with the remaining 1.6 weeks depends on their employment contract.
For example, you could allow them to carry those 1.6 weeks into the next leave year or state that all 5.6 weeks must be taken by the end of the leave year.
However, you cannot make a payment in lieu for any days that remain untaken. The only time you can make a payment in lieu of the statutory holiday entitlement is when the contract of employment terminates, and the worker has accrued entitlement to holidays and is unable to take them before they leave.
Payments for untaken contractual holiday
At the end of a leave year, you may find you have an employee who has some untaken contractual annual leave, ie annual leave over and above the statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks.
Depending on their employment contract, the employee may be entitled to either carry over the untaken days, or receive a payment in lieu of those untaken days.
When to pay workers their statutory holiday pay
Workers must receive their statutory holiday pay at the time that leave is taken.
It's, therefore, unlawful to not pay a worker while they are on holiday and pay them an allowance as part of their wages or salary instead - a system known as rolled-up holiday pay.
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Calculating holiday entitlement for atypical workers
How to work out statutory paid annual leave for part-time staff, shift workers, casual workers, and others.
There are various ways of working out the holiday entitlement for workers who don't have regular working arrangements or patterns.
Part-time workers
Paid holiday entitlement is calculated pro-rata for part-time workers.
For example, if a member of staff works three days a week, they are entitled to 16.8 days (5.6 x 3).
Shift workers
It is sometimes easier to calculate holiday entitlement as shifts.
For example, if a member of staff works four 12-hour shifts followed by four days off, the average working week is 3.5 12-hour shifts. So 5.6 weeks' holiday is 5.6 x 3.5 = 19.6 12-hour shifts.
For other shift patterns, it may be easiest to calculate according to the established repeating pattern.
More irregular working patterns: calculating holidays in hours
Annualised hours
If a member of staff works annualised hours, you need to calculate how many hours a week they work on average over the whole year.
For example, if a member of staff works a total of 1,600 hours a year, or 34.48 hours a week over 46.4 weeks of the year, the holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks x 34.48 hours a week = 193.09 hours of holiday for the year.
Compressed hours
For someone working compressed hours, for example, a 36-hour week over four days instead of five, their annual holiday entitlement is 36 hours x 5.6 weeks = 201.6 hours of holiday for the year.
Rather than taking a day's holiday, they would take the number of hours that they would have otherwise worked on that day (ie for 36 hours worked over four days, they would take nine hours' holiday for each day otherwise worked).
Calculating no fixed hours contracts (casual work, including zero-hours contracts)
To calculate the average hourly rate, only the hours worked and how much was paid for them should be counted. Take the average rate over the last 12 weeks.
A 'week' usually runs from Sunday to Saturday. Only use another 7-day period (like Thursday to Wednesday) if that's how a worker's pay is calculated.
You can also get further information from the LRA Workplace Information Service on Tel 03300 555 300.
Part days
Calculations may result in part days, eg 22.4 days for someone working four days a week. In some cases, it may be easier to work the holidays out in hours.
If this is the case, you could:
- Allow the worker to leave early or arrive late one day. For example, for someone working an eight-hour day taking 0.4 of a day's holiday, you could allow them to leave after working for four hours and 48 minutes (480 minutes x 0.6 of a working day = 288 minutes) or allow them to arrive three hours and 12 minutes late (0.4 of a working day).
- Round the entitlement up to the nearest full day - or half day if this is still easy for you to administer. You cannot round entitlements down.
- Allow the worker to carry the part day over into the next leave year (and then perhaps round up to the nearest full day).
- Pay them for a part day. However, you can only do this if the worker's paid holiday entitlement is more than 5.6 weeks as you cannot pay a worker in lieu of an untaken statutory holiday - see calculating and paying holiday pay.
Term time or part-year workers
Recent case law has determined workers employed on a continuous contract throughout the year, and who work for varying hours during certain weeks of the year, such as those who work only term time, are entitled to 5.6 weeks of leave each year. This entitlement applies even though there are some weeks in the year when they do not work.
In such instances, holiday pay is calculated by averaging the pay received during the 12 weeks before the commencement of their leave. If there are weeks during the 12-week period where no pay was received, these weeks are disregarded and the employer must count back to include a total of 12 weeks in which pay was received.
Although there may be times when a part-year worker receives a higher payment than a full-time worker - this is compliant with the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000, as the part-time worker is not being treated less favourably. There is no legislative provision to prevent part-time workers from being treated more favourably.
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Holiday entitlement for employees on statutory family-related leave
Holiday entitlement for staff on family-related leave.
Employees taking statutory maternity, adoption, paternity, parental leave, and parental bereavement leave will continue to accrue statutory paid holiday and, in many cases, any contractual holiday entitlement. If, by the end of the current holiday year, an employee has been prevented from taking part or all of their holiday leave entitlement due to being on one of these types of statutory leave, they have a right to carry over up to 5.6 weeks untaken statutory holiday leave into the new holiday year.
Holiday entitlement and maternity/adoption leave
Employees on maternity or adoption leave continue to accrue both statutory and any contractual paid holiday during both ordinary and additional maternity/adoption leave.
A statutory paid holiday cannot be taken at the same time as maternity/adoption leave. When you are planning for the maternity/adoption leave, you may wish to discuss taking any outstanding holiday and perhaps delay the start of their maternity/adoption leave.
Alternatively, it may be possible for them to take holiday at the end of the maternity/adoption leave period.
If a new holiday year starts, the employee is on maternity/adoption leave and holidays haven't been taken, the employee has a right to carry over up to 5.6 weeks untaken statutory holiday leave to the new holiday year.
When you are planning, you should both be aware that maternity and adoption leave cannot start later than the date of the child's birth or placement for adoption, so an early birth or placement could shorten the amount of annual leave the employee is able to take.
Read more on maternity leave and pay and adoption leave and pay.
Holiday entitlement and paternity leave
Employees continue to accrue their statutory and any contractual paid holiday entitlement while they are on statutory paternity leave.
Read more on paternity leave and pay.
Holiday entitlement and shared parental leave
Employees continue to accrue their statutory and any contractual paid holiday entitlement while they are on shared parental leave.
Read more on shared parental leave and pay.
Holiday entitlement and parental leave
Employees continue to accrue their statutory paid holiday entitlement while they are on parental leave. They will also continue to accrue contractual holiday entitlement if this is provided for in their contract of employment.
See parental leave and time off for dependants.
Holiday entitlement and parental bereavement leave
Employees continue to accrue their statutory paid holiday entitlement while they are on parental bereavement leave. They will also continue to accrue contractual holiday entitlement if this is provided for in their contract of employment.
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Pay and time off on public and bank holidays
Including bank and public holidays as part of your workers' statutory paid holiday entitlement.
You do not have to give staff paid time off for bank and public holidays. However, you should set out in a worker's contract:
- any right to time off on bank and public holidays
- whether or not that time off is paid
- what you will pay them if they work one of these days, ie whether you will pay the normal rate of pay or an enhanced rate, eg time-and-a-half or double time
Note that if you allow a worker time off for bank and public holidays over a significant period of time, it may become an implied term of their contract via custom and practice, ie the term is not actually written in the contract document but is still part of the contract.
Part-time staff
Part-time staff have the same entitlement to leave as full-time workers. Therefore, if full-time staff are given paid leave for bank and public holidays, part-time workers should also receive this benefit on a pro-rata basis.
This can be a problem if most of the bank and public holidays fall on days when a part-time worker doesn't normally work.
A best practice example is as follows:
An employer has both part-time and full-time staff. In a particular year, there are ten bank/public holidays. The full-time staff work a five-day week, Monday to Friday. There are also part-time staff working a two-day week, some on Monday and Tuesday, some on Wednesday and Thursday, and some working varying days.
The employer allows all workers the day off in respect of all bank/public holidays falling on a day they would ordinarily have worked. Furthermore, for those part-time staff working Wednesday and Thursday (or varying days) who would never (or rarely) work on the day a bank/public holiday falls, the employer allows them a pro-rata entitlement of days off in lieu based on the number of days they work, by way of best practice. They, therefore, receive two-fifths of the ten-day entitlement.
This approach ensures that all workers enjoy a share of the benefits received by full-time staff.
Read more on employing part-time workers.
Bank and public holiday dates
When the Christmas and New Year public holidays fall at a weekend, other weekdays are declared public holidays. These are usually the following Monday and, if necessary, the Tuesday.
If a worker normally works weekends, and Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day fall on a weekend, entitlement to time off depends on their employment contract. This may be something that is explicitly agreed upon in the terms of the contract or could have been incorporated through custom and practice.
However, entitlement will not depend on the contract if you are operating on the statutory entitlement of 5.6 weeks.
See bank and public holidays in Northern Ireland.
Special bank holidays
Dates of bank holidays can be changed or extra holidays declared to celebrate special occasions. For example, there was an extra bank holiday on Monday 8 May 2023 to mark the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III.
A worker's minimum paid annual leave entitlement is 5.6 weeks. There is no statutory time off for bank holidays and public holidays. However, you may choose to include these as part of that worker's entitlement.
Where a worker's contract states they are entitled to the statutory minimum annual leave, an extra bank holiday would not increase their paid holiday entitlement.
However, if a worker had a contract that entitles them to 20 days' annual leave plus all bank and public holidays, they should be entitled to the additional bank holiday as annual leave.
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Taking holiday - notice periods, restrictions and sickness
Holiday request procedures, notice periods what to do when workers are sick.
Workers must give you notice that they wish to take leave. You can agree the notice period with your workers and should set this out in writing.
If there is no agreement in place, they must give notice of at least twice the length of the intended leave period. You must reply within the same length of time as the intended leave.
For example, if the worker gives two days' notice for one day's leave, you must reply within one day. Even if the worker gives sufficient notice, you may still refuse the request - but be as reasonable as you can. You should retain a record of the refusal reason, and act consistently with respect to any refusals, within reason.
Restricting when holiday may be taken
You may restrict the taking of leave. Restrictions could:
- be stated in the employment contract
- have built up via custom and practice
- be negotiated with trade unions or employee representatives
Examples include:
- specifying periods when leave may or may not be taken
- capping the amount of leave that can be taken at any one time
- shutting down for certain periods, eg between Christmas and New Year or for two weeks in August
If you don't have an agreement for taking leave and you want workers to take all or part of their holiday entitlement on certain dates, you must give notice of at least twice as long as the leave period.
Resolve clashes between requests for leave by considering the needs of the business, eg peak season or a quieter period, the individual circumstances, or by setting out clear rules for booking leave. It may be helpful to formalise cover for key staff on annual leave.
If you set restrictions on when holidays can be taken, bear in mind the need to avoid indirect discrimination - read more on how to prevent discrimination and value diversity.
You should also note that it's unlawful to prevent a worker from taking their statutory paid holiday entitlement. Therefore, you may have to allow a worker's annual leave request right at the end of the leave year to ensure that they have taken their full entitlement of 5.6 weeks or 4 weeks where you have agreed carry over.
Workers will also be able to carry over up to 4 weeks of holiday leave where:
- the employer fails to recognise a worker's right to paid holiday leave
- the employer fails to give the worker reasonable opportunity to take holiday leave or to encourage them to do so
- the employer fails to inform the worker that any holiday leave not taken by the end of the holiday leave year, which can be carried over, will be lost
Accruing annual leave during sick leave
A worker continues to accrue their statutory minimum holiday entitlement as normal while absent from work due to sickness. This is regardless of how long the period of sickness lasts.
Depending on the terms of their employment contract, they may also accrue any additional contractual annual leave that they would normally be entitled to.
Taking annual leave during sick leave
A worker is entitled to take statutory annual leave while on sick leave.
If the worker chooses to take annual leave while they are on sick leave but they are not receiving any sick pay, you pay them their normal holiday pay.
A worker is most likely to choose to take annual leave while on sick leave if they are:
- not entitled to sick pay of any kind
- on sick leave for a long period and, as a result, you have stopped paying them sick pay
- due to return to work shortly before the end of the leave year and, as a result, would be unable to take their full holiday entitlement following their return to work
Changing annual leave to sick leave
A worker can choose to change a period of annual leave during which they are sick to sick leave. This would occur if they either:
- become sick while on annual leave
- have a period of sick leave that continues into a pre-arranged period of annual leave
Once the worker returns to work, they can then make arrangements to take the annual leave they missed at a later date.
Where a worker is on sick leave instead of annual leave, you should consider asking them for evidence of their sickness in line with your usual sickness absence procedures and in line with any eligibility criteria for statutory sick pay.
For example, to qualify for full pay while sick, you could:
- require a worker to inform you as soon as reasonably possible that they are sick
- request that they provide you with medical evidence of that sickness
For more information about sick pay, see understanding statutory sick pay.
Carrying over annual leave that is left untaken due to sickness
If a worker is unable to take all their statutory annual leave entitlement within a leave year because of illness, they will be entitled to carry forward up to 4 weeks of the unused statutory entitlement to the next leave year. Holiday leave carried over in this way must be taken by the end of the period of 18 months from the end of the holiday leave year in which the entitlement originally arose.
If you need further advice on sick leave and/or annual leave, you should contact the Labour Relations Agency Workplace Information Service on Tel 03300 555 300.
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Holiday pay on termination of employment
Calculating holiday pay when workers leave your employment.
When your workers leave a job - even if you have dismissed them without notice for gross misconduct - they must receive pay for any statutory leave they are entitled to in the current leave year but have not taken.
This entitlement is not subject to a minimum period of employment.
Formula to calculate pay due to workers who resign
You can work out the pay due using the simple formula (A x B) - C, where:
- A is the total holiday entitlement for the year
- B is the fraction of the year to the date of leaving
- C is the amount of holidays already taken
Example: Part-time worker
For example, a part-time worker works three days per week. Like all workers, they are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave.
They leave a job seven months into the leave year having taken eight days off. This is the equivalent of 2.66 weeks (8 ÷ 3).
Applying the formula above: 5.6 x (7 ÷ 12) - 2.66 = 0.61 weeks' leave to be paid in lieu.
Note that, if you need to, you should round this figure up to prevent underpayment.
If you pay a worker on a daily basis, you can also work out their outstanding holiday entitlement in days.
Example: Full-time worker
For example, a worker working five days per week is entitled to 5.6 weeks per year, the equivalent of 28 days (5.6 x 5).
They leave a job three months into the year having taken four days off.
Applying the formula above: 28 x (3 ÷ 12) - 4 = 3 days' leave to be paid in lieu.
Note that, if you need to, you should round this figure up to prevent underpayment.
You need to get the worker's signed agreement to make a deduction from the final payment to them for any leave taken over their entitlement.
Calculate pay when workers fail to give the correct period of notice
Holiday pay would usually sit separately from notice entitlement and would be earned up to the date the worker leaves your employment.
However, if a worker leaves employment without giving the correct period of notice, they could be in breach of their employment contract if the contract contains a clause stating what will happen if this occurs eg deductions will be made from earned pay.
Calculating leave pay due to workers who you dismiss
If you dismiss a worker, they have the right to be paid for leave accrued during their period of employment, no matter how short it was.
To work out B when using the formula above, you need to know the worker's termination date.
If you dismiss a worker with notice, the termination date is the date the notice period expires.
If you dismiss a worker without notice, the termination date is the date you summarily dismissed the worker.
An employee's written statement of employment particulars should contain information to enable them to calculate their entitlement to accrued holiday pay when they leave.
Taking annual leave during the notice period
A worker may wish to take some or all of their outstanding annual leave as part of their notice period. This should be treated the same as for any other holiday request - taking into account your usual procedure for authorising annual leave. Read more on taking holiday - notice periods, restrictions and sickness.
You can also insist by giving appropriate notice or because it is clearly expressed in the contract of employment, that a worker takes any holiday owed to them as part of their notice period.
If a worker takes part of their paid leave entitlement during their notice period, you may reduce their notice pay by the amount of holiday pay, provided it is in respect of the same leave year.
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Managing staff holiday entitlement: five top tips
Follow these tips to help you successfully manage each worker’s holiday entitlement.
The majority of your workers are legally entitled to paid holidays. The following top tips will help you to successfully manage each worker's holiday entitlement.
Top tips for employers to manage staff holiday entitlement
1. Calculate holiday entitlement
A worker's statutory paid holiday entitlement starts on the first day of employment and is 5.6 weeks per year (28 days for a worker working a five or six-day week) - see holiday entitlement and statutory holiday pay.
2. Consider irregular hours
Ensure that you work out holiday entitlement for any staff who don't have regular working arrangements. These can include part-time workers, shift workers, and casual workers - see calculating holiday entitlement for atypical workers.
3. Include in employment contracts
Set out your employee's paid holiday entitlement in their employment contract to avoid any disagreements - see the employment contract.
4. Consider bank and public holidays
You do not have to give staff paid time off for bank or public holidays, but ensure that you include this in your employees' contracts. If you allow a worker time off for bank and public holidays over a significant period of time, be aware that it may become an implied term of their contract, even if it is not written in the contract of employment - see pay and time off on public and bank holidays.
5. Agree notice periods
Workers must give you notice if they wish to take leave. You can agree the notice period with them and you should set this out clearly in writing - see taking holiday - notice periods, restrictions, and sickness.
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Defences to an equal pay claim
In this guide:
- Equal pay law and employer best practice
- Equal pay law overview
- What is equal work?
- Choosing a comparator for equal pay claims
- Equal pay and part-time work
- Equal pay and occupational pension schemes
- Defences to an equal pay claim
- Equal pay, pregnancy and maternity leave
- Equal pay questionnaires
- Benefits of carrying out an equal pay audit
- Equal pay: Upcoming legal changes
Equal pay law overview
How equal pay law in Northern Ireland protects the rights of employees to receive equal pay for equal work.
The principle that women and men are entitled to equal pay for doing equal work is embedded in domestic and European Union law. Pay is defined broadly under European Union law and includes pensions.
Article 4 of the recast Equal Treatment Directive requires that 'for the same work or for work to which equal value is attributed, direct and indirect discrimination on grounds of sex with regard to all aspects and conditions of remuneration shall be eliminated'.
Equal pay legislation
In Northern Ireland the principle outlined in Article 4 of the Directive is implemented through the following three pieces of law:
- The Equal Pay Act (NI) 1970 requires employers to pay men and women equal pay for equal work. It prohibits sex discrimination between employees in respect of their contractual pay and terms and conditions of employment.
- The Sex Discrimination (NI) Order 1976 prohibits sex discrimination in relation to non-contractual entitlements to benefits.
- The Pensions (NI) Order 1995 prohibits sex discrimination in relation to employees' access to pension schemes, and in the way they are treated under the rules of such schemes.
All workers have a right to equal pay with a person of the opposite sex doing like work, work of equal value, or work rated as equivalent.
The equal pay provisions in the Equal Pay Act (NI) 1970 apply to all contractual terms, not just those directly related to remuneration, such as holiday entitlement.
Although the law on equal pay may seem complicated, its purpose is simple - to ensure that where women and men are doing equal work for the same or an associated employer, they should receive the same rewards for it. Therefore, any references to a woman in this guide apply equally to a man claiming equal pay.
Equal pay does not exist in isolation from other equality areas and if an employer wishes to address unequal pay effectively, it has to be as part of a broader approach to equality.
It is worth noting that there are differences in the legal provisions that apply to sex discrimination in pay compared with discrimination in pay based on the other equality grounds. It is not the purpose of these guidance notes to focus on those differences but to summarise the key principles underpinning equal pay legislation.
Sex equality clause
A woman doing equal work with a man in the same employment is entitled to equality in pay and other contractual terms unless the employer can show that there is a genuine material reason for the difference which does not discriminate on the basis of her sex.
Where there is equal work, the law implies a sex equality clause automatically into the woman's contract of employment, modifying it where necessary to ensure her pay and all other contractual terms are no less favourable than the man's.
Where a woman doing equal work shows that she is receiving less pay or other less favourable terms in her contract, the employer will have to show why this is the case. If the employer is unable to show that the difference is due to a genuine material factor that has nothing to do with her sex, then the equality clause takes effect.
These equal pay provisions apply to all contractual terms including wages and salaries, non-discretionary bonuses, holiday pay, sick pay, overtime, shift payments, and occupational pension benefits, and to non-monetary terms such as leave entitlements or access to sports and social benefits.
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What is equal work?
How the terms 'like work', 'work rated as equivalent', 'work of equal value', and 'pay' are defined.
Under the Equal Pay Act (NI) 1970 an employee has a right to equal pay with any employee of the opposite sex, known as 'comparator', who is doing work that is either:
- the same or broadly similar provided that where there are any differences in the work these are not of practical importance: this is known as 'like work'
- different, but is rated under a job evaluation scheme as being work of equal value: this is known as 'work rated as equivalent'
- different, but of equal value in terms of factors such as effort, skill, and decision-making: this is known as 'work of equal value'
The comparator must be in the 'same employment' as the claimant. This means they are employed by the same or an associated employer at the same workplace, or by the same or an associated employer at a different workplace where common terms and conditions apply generally or to the relevant classes of employees.
The law thus provides for three types of equal pay claims.
1. Like work
There are two questions to ask when determining 'like work':
- whether the woman and her male comparator are employed in work that is the same or broadly similar, and
- whether any differences between her work and that done by her comparator are 'of practical importance', taking into consideration the frequency with which any differences occur in practice and the nature and extent of those differences
It is for the employer to show that there are differences of practical importance in the work actually performed. Differences such as additional duties, level of responsibility, skills, the time at which work is done, qualifications, training, and physical effort could all be valid.
2. Work rated as equivalent
A woman will be entitled to equal pay with a man where her work is rated as at least equivalent to the work that he does under an employer's job evaluation study in terms of the demands made on the workers, by reference to factors such as effort, skill, and decision-making.
A job evaluation study will rate the demands made by jobs under headings such as skill, effort, and decision-making. Studies must be non-discriminatory and not influenced by gender stereotyping or assumptions about women's and men's work.
3. Work of equal value
A woman can claim equal pay with a man if she can show that her work is of equal value to him in terms of the demands made on her. This means that the jobs done by a woman and her comparator are different but can be regarded as being of equal worth, taking into account the nature of the work, the training or skills necessary to do the job, the conditions of work, and the decision-making that is part of the role.
Equal value claims thus raise the possibility of making comparisons across traditional job boundaries.
Definition of pay
For the purposes of equal pay claims, pay has been widely defined to include:
- basic pay and salary
- performance-related pay
- contractual bonuses
- contractual benefits including holiday pay, sick pay, occupational pensions, and concessionary travel for family members
- premiums paid for shift working
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Choosing a comparator for equal pay claims
How a female employee can choose the colleague or colleagues she wants to be compared to.
The Equal Pay Act (NI) 1970 requires a claimant to identify an actual comparator in the same employment. A woman can claim equal pay for equal work with a male colleague or colleagues (known then as a 'comparator'). It is for her to choose the colleague(s), although she does not have to identify them by name at the outset.
The selected comparator could be representative of a group of workers or he could be the only person doing the particular type of work.
The female employee may choose more than one comparator and multiple comparators may be necessary for a term-by-term comparison of her contract. However, an industrial tribunal can strike out a claim with a particular comparator, or could in exceptional cases require a claimant who unreasonably cites too many comparators, to pay some costs.
The chosen comparator does not have to be working at the same time as the woman, so he may for example be a predecessor in the job. However, he cannot be a successor or a hypothetical person.
A comparator in the same employment
For an entitlement to equal pay for equal work to exist, the comparator must be employed by the same employer as the claimant or by an associated employer. The statute states that employees are deemed to be in the same employment if they are employed by the same employer or any associated employer at the same establishment or at establishments in Northern Ireland which include that one and at which common terms and conditions of employment are observed either generally or for employees of the relevant classes. Where the comparator is working at a different establishment, the UK Supreme Court has held that one needs to ask whether, assuming that the comparator was employed to do his present job in the claimant's establishment, would his terms and conditions still be broadly similar to those he currently has in his own establishment.
Furthermore, European law suggests that people will be in the same employment where there is a single, shared source with responsibility for agreeing and setting out the terms and conditions of employment and where that single source is in a position to put right any unlawful discrimination. In practice, this has encompassed employment within the same organisation and within organisations that share common terms and conditions.
What can be compared?
Each individual term in the woman's contract of employment will be compared with those of the comparator(s).
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Equal pay and part-time work
The rights of part-time workers to equal pay and other treatment that is not unfavourable.
A pay practice that treats part-time workers less favourably than comparable full-time workers is likely to be indirectly discriminatory against women, as more women than men work part-time.
Unless an employer can objectively justify the pay differential or practice, it will be unlawful. It is unlikely that an employer could justify a different basic hourly rate for full-time and part-time workers.
In most cases where a part-time worker is paid less (pro-rata) than a full-time worker, the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (NI) 2000 would also apply. These ban the less favourable treatment of part-time workers (male or female) unless it can be objectively justified.
The exclusion of part-time workers from an occupational pension scheme has been held to be indirectly discriminatory and unlawful.
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Equal pay and occupational pension schemes
How equal pay provisions apply to employee rights and occupational pension schemes.
Occupational pension schemes are subject to the equal pay for equal work principle. Most occupational pension schemes are trust-based schemes where the scheme is legally separate from the employer and is administered by trustees, who are bound to implement equal treatment between women and men. The benefits will be in the form of pensions and lump sums.
Equal treatment rule
The equal treatment rule operates to ensure that comparable women and men are treated equally in both access to and benefits of an occupational pension scheme. If an occupational pension scheme, or a term of it, is less favourable to a woman than it is to a male comparator, then the term is modified so that it is not less favourable.
However, if the trustees or managers of the scheme can show that the difference in treatment is because of a genuine material factor which is not the difference in sex, then the sex equality rule will not apply to that difference.
Women on paid maternity, adoption or shared parental leave are covered by the equal treatment rule. The only time a woman on maternity, adoption, or shared parental leave may be treated differently is when she is on a period of unpaid leave when she is not entitled to accrue occupational pension benefits.
The terms on which benefits are provided to dependants of members and associated discretions, are also covered by the equal treatment rule.
Where people are treated differently according to their marital or civil partnership status, a woman must select a male comparator who has the same status. So if a scheme provides a particular benefit only to members who are married or in civil partnerships, a woman who is not married or in a civil partnership cannot choose a man who is married or in a civil partnership as a comparator for a claim.
There is an exception to the equal treatment rule that allows a difference in occupational pension contributions for women and men because of prescribed actuarial factors. For example, an employer may have to pay higher contributions for female than male employees because of their longer life expectancy.
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Defences to an equal pay claim
Valid reasons why an employer might lawfully be able to impose unequal pay and other terms of employment.
The possible defences that you may raise in response to an equal pay claim are:
- the woman and her comparator are not doing equal work
- the chosen comparator is not allowed by law (for example he is not in the same employment)
- the difference in pay is due to a genuine material factor, which is not related to the sex of the jobholders
Genuine material factor defence
Once a claimant has shown that they are doing equal work with their comparator, the equality clause will take effect unless the employer can prove that the difference is genuinely due to a material factor that does not itself discriminate against the claimant because of their sex. Basically, the employer is able to give a genuine reason for the difference in pay between the claimant and their comparator that is not related to gender.
The employer must identify the factor(s) and prove:
- it is the real reason for the difference in pay
- it causes the difference in pay between the woman and her comparator
- it is material - that is, significant and relevant
- it does not involve direct or indirect sex discrimination
Personal differences between the workers concerned such as experience and qualifications may be material factors.
To be a valid defence, the material factor must not be directly discriminatory and if it is indirectly discriminatory, the difference in terms must be objectively justified. A material factor will be directly discriminatory where it is based on treating women and men differently because of their sex.
Indirect discrimination arises where a pay system, policy, or arrangement has a disproportionate adverse impact on women compared with their male comparators unless you can objectively justify it.
You can justify an indirectly discriminatory factor by showing that it is a 'proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim'. Even where the aim is legitimate, the employer must be able to show that the means it adopts to achieve the aim is proportionate in the circumstances.
Job evaluation
Job evaluation is a systematic and analytical procedure for comparing and determining the relative importance of different jobs. The process is common across the public sector where it enables employers to create fair pay systems and job hierarchies.
Employers considering the adoption of a job evaluation scheme should seek expert support around the development and implementation of the scheme to ensure that it does not unlawfully discriminate.
Where a non-discriminatory and analytical job evaluation scheme has determined that the work of the man and the woman are not equal, this can be used to defend an equal pay claim. Due to the risk of discrimination creeping into the job evaluation process, employers should seek expert support throughout the process.
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Equal pay, pregnancy and maternity leave
The rights of employees who are pregnant or on maternity leave to receive pay rises and bonuses.
Pregnant employees and those taking maternity leave enjoy a wide but complex range of legal rights that regulate their relationship with their employers and in some cases their prospective employers.
These legal rights primarily exist:
- to protect their health and safety and that of their expectant or new-born children
- to preserve the contractual terms and conditions of employment that they would have otherwise enjoyed if they had not been pregnant
- to help them to attain a more satisfactory work/life balance following their children's births
- to protect them from unlawful discrimination
- to generally promote their equality of opportunity in employment
Equality clause
An equality clause is implied into a woman's contract to ensure that she receives certain pay increases and contractual bonus payments when she is on maternity leave. There is no need to show equal work with a comparator in this situation.
The equality clause applies to:
- the calculation of contractual maternity-related pay
- bonus payments during maternity leave
- pay increases following maternity leave
During maternity leave a woman's entitlement to receive her usual contractual remuneration (that is, salary or other benefits with a transferable cash value such as a car allowance or luncheon vouchers) stops unless her contract provides for this.
However, she is entitled to any pay rise or contractual bonus payment (relating to the period of compulsory maternity leave) awarded during her maternity leave period, or that would have been awarded had she not been on maternity leave.
Any pay increase a woman receives or would have received had she not been on maternity leave must be taken into account in the calculation of her maternity-related pay.
Similarly, any pay or bonus related to the time before the maternity leave starts, during compulsory maternity leave, or after maternity leave ends, must be paid without delay. So if a woman becomes entitled to a contractual bonus for work she undertook before she went on maternity leave, she should receive it when it would have been paid had she not been on maternity leave.
On her return to work a woman should receive any pay increases which would have been paid to her had she not been on maternity leave.
Unfavourable treatment because of pregnancy or maternity in relation to non-contractual pay and benefits is covered by the employment discrimination provisions in the Sex Discrimination (NI) Order 1976.
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Equal pay questionnaires
The rights of employees to make enquiries about pay arrangements to find out if they receive equal pay.
Under the Equal Pay Act (NI) 1970, as amended, a person who believes they may have an equal pay claim is permitted to ask their employer for information that is or may be relevant to her claim. The questionnaire which must be used is prescribed in the legislation and can be obtained from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.
The questionnaire is intended to help individuals who believe they may not have received equal pay to obtain information from their employers to find out whether this is the case and, if so, why.
The information should help to establish key facts early on and make it easier to resolve any disputes in the workplace.
If the complainant decides to take a case to an industrial tribunal, the information should enable the complaint to be presented in the most effective way and the proceedings should be that much simpler because the matters in dispute have been identified in advance.
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Benefits of carrying out an equal pay audit
How to audit your pay system to make sure it is transparent, equal, and fair.
Employers are responsible for providing equal pay for equal work and it is good practice to conduct pay audits to ensure that this is the case. Where a pay system lacks transparency, the employer could be required to prove that the pay system does not discriminate because of gender.
Some changes regarding equal pay and pay audits may take effect in the near future - see equal pay: upcoming legal changes.
Pay arrangements are often complicated and the features that can give rise to discrimination in pay are not always obvious.
The benefits to an organisation of carrying out an equal pay audit include:
- identifying, explaining and, where unjustifiable, eliminating pay inequalities
- having rational, fair, and transparent pay arrangements
- demonstrating to employees and to potential employees a commitment to equality
- demonstrating the organisation's values to those it does business with
To ensure that your equal pay audit follows best practice, you can use the Equality Commission's Code of Practice on Equal Pay (PDF, 538K).
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Equal pay: Upcoming legal changes
Changes that will come into force in relation to the Employment Act (NI) 2016.
At present, the Equal Pay Act (NI) does not impose any positive legal duty on employers that requires them to carry out equal pay audits to identify pay inequalities or to take remedial action.
The Equality Commission encourages all employers to be proactive in that way, but for the time being that is only a recommendation of good practice.
Employment Act (NI) 2016
For some employers, this may change as a result of section 19 of the Employment Act (NI) 2016. The latter has not yet come into force, but when it does it will impose a duty on the Northern Ireland Executive to make a new set of statutory regulations which, when passed, will impose new duties (described below) on some employers.
Section 19 of the Employment Act (NI) 2016 does not specify which employers will have to comply with the new duties.
Employer duties
The duties that the regulations will apply to the affected employers are to:
- publish information about the pay received by their workforces
- publish that information periodically - every 12 to 36 months, possibly
- develop action plans to eliminate any gender pay differences that are found
The regulations will specify further details about what information is to be collected and published.
A breach of duties imposed by the regulations will be a criminal offence and offenders will be liable to financial penalties of up to £5,000 per employee.
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Performance management and staff training templates
In this guide:
- HR documents and templates
- Recruitment forms and templates
- Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
- Time off work policies and procedures
- Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
- Managing absence templates
- Performance management and staff training templates
- Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
- Redundancy letters, forms and templates
- Other key HR policies and templates
Recruitment forms and templates
Sample recruitment templates including forms, letters, and documents to help you recruit, shortlist and interview potential employees.
Recruitment and selection of new employees should always be considered carefully by any business regardless of their size. The people you employ will form an essential part of your business strategy and will contribute greatly to the success of your business.
Staff recruitment templates
To ensure you attract the best people, you will need to ensure that your recruitment process is fine-tuned, non-discriminatory, and tailored to your business needs. For further guidance see the Employer's Handbook Section 2: Recruiting new employees (PDF, 420K).
For an overview of the recruitment stages and general considerations, download our recruitment process flowchart (DOC, 87K).
For sample template recruitment documents to help with particular stages of the recruitment process, see below.
Templates for advertising your job vacancy
You will need to prepare a job description, a personnel specification, and an application form to advertise your job vacancy. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample template recruitment documents and forms:
- sample job description template (DOC, 14K)
- sample personnel specification template (DOC, 15K)
- sample recruitment advertisement template (DOC, 16K)
- sample job application form template (DOC, 18K)
- sample monitoring questionnaire for job applicants template (DOC, 20K)
Templates for shortlisting candidates
Once you receive replies from candidates to your job vacancy advertisement, you will need to draw up a shortlist and invite those shortlisted to an interview. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample shortlisting documentation templates:
- sample shortlisting record table template (DOC, 15K)
- shortlisting guidance (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of invitation to first interview template (DOC, 13K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following shortlisting exercise template (DOC, 13K)
Templates for interviewing candidates
The more preparation you do for the job interview, the easier it will be for both you and the candidate. To help you prepare and carry out the interview process correctly, download and read our factsheets on interviewing, and use our sample record of interview templates:
- sample interview record document template (DOC, 14K)
- sample interview report document template (DOC, 14K)
- preparing for job interviews factsheet (DOC, 14K)
- interview practicalities and structure (DOC, 14K)
- do's and don'ts of interviewing job applicants (DOC, 15K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following job interview template (DOC, 12K)
Read more on advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Recruitment and selection tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on recruitment and selection. You can view the full Invest NI recruitment & selection tutorial.
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Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
Use our sample job offer letters, induction plans, and contract of employment to welcome and start a new member of your staff.
The final stage of the recruitment process involves choosing the successful candidate and making them a job offer.
You will need to consider whether you wish to make a job offer that is conditional on satisfactory references and right to work checks. If your job offer is accepted, you should arrange an induction plan for your new starter and consider the terms of your contract of employment.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
For further guidance on job offers, inductions and employment contracts see the following sections of the Invest Northern Ireland Employer's Handbook:
For sample documents to help you conclude your recruitment exercise fairly and efficiently, see relevant sections below.
Job offers
The initial job offer may be made by telephone. This should help you quickly establish if the individual wants to accept the job you are offering.
If that is the case, you should follow up with a formal letter of offer, and include details of any conditions attached to the job offer, eg satisfactory references. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample job offer letter and reference check form:
- sample letter of job offer to successful candidate (DOC, 12K)
- sample reference check form (DOC, 12K)
Contract of employment
The moment a candidate unconditionally accepts your offer of a job, a contract of employment comes into existence. To help you draft a contract of employment suitable to your business needs and the role in question, download and use our sample contract of employment, as well as staff policy documents to be included in it:
- sample contract of employment (DOC, 46K)
- sample sickness/absence notification and pay procedure (DOC, 27K)
Even if you do not issue a written contract of employment, you are under a legal duty to provide most employees with a written statement of main employment particulars within two months of the start of their employment with you.
Induction
You should aim to introduce, familiarise and integrate your new employee into your business as quickly as possible. Early induction will not only provide new-starters with the information they need to settle in, but will also provide them with the knowledge and skills that will help them contribute to your business right from the start.
To help you devise your staff induction activities, download and use our sample induction plans:
See induction programme: what to include.
View all recruitment & Selection - Invest NI tutorial videos.
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Time off work policies and procedures
Download a sample working time opt-out agreement and steps to help you determine your workers' leave entitlement.
You should set your normal working hours in your employment contract, or written statement of employment. Unless you operate within certain sectors, you cannot force your workers to work for more than 48 hours per week on average.
Special working time rules apply to young people. Find further information on hours, rest breaks and the working week.
If your workers wish to work for longer than 48 hours per week, they can choose to opt out of the Working Time Regulations. This must be done voluntarily and in writing in order for you to comply with the law.
Download our sample working time opt-out agreement (DOC, 14K).
Remember that you can't force your workers to sign an opt-out agreement or to cancel it, though a worker can cancel it voluntarily after giving you appropriate notice.
Annual leave
Most workers are legally entitled to paid holidays/annual leave.
A worker's statutory paid holiday entitlement in Northern Ireland is 5.6 weeks. This amounts to 28 days for a worker working a five-day week. This can include public and bank holidays. See:
- Know how much holiday to give your staff
- Calculate your employees' holiday entitlement
- Bank and public holiday dates
The leave entitlement for part-time workers or those who are about to leave employment is calculated on a pro-rata basis. Use the following step-by-step guidance to calculate how much leave these workers may be entitled to:
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of part-time workers (DOC, 13K)
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of leavers (DOC, 13K)
For additional leave information, such us notice periods, restrictions and holiday pay, see know how much holiday to give your staff.
For further guidance see Employers' Handbook Section 4: Working hours, rest breaks and time off (PDF, 83K).
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Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
Sample letters and application forms to help you manage your workers' rights to maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave.
Your responsibilities in relation to rights of working parents - or parents to be - are explained in our maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave section.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you communicate with your workers in respect of their entitlements are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 8: Maternity leave and pay (PDF, 83K)
- Section 9: Paternity leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 10: Adoption leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 11: Shared parental leave and pay (PDF, 114K)
- Section 12: Parental leave, parental bereavement leave and time off for dependants (PDF, 82K)
Sample employer documents
You can download, customise and use sample documents from the handbook that are relevant to maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave:
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of maternity leave (DOC, 14K)
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of adoption leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample employee application for parental leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to employee of notification of postponement of parental leave (DOC, 13K)
- sample shared parental leave (birth) policy (DOC, 39K)
- sample shared parental leave (adoption) policy (DOC, 38K)
- sample confirmation of entitlement to shared parental leave (DOC, 27K)
- sample confirmation of shared parental leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave request to discuss leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave refusal of a discontinuous leave booking (DOC, 27K)
For help with administering paternity and adoption leave, use the maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay calculator for employers.
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Managing absence templates
Sample documents to help you manage staff absence with employment policies that follow good practice and comply with legislation.
Managing staff absence is a frequent and critical element to good people management within a business.
Absence causes difficulties both for the person who is absent and for the organisation. For small organisations in particular, where there are limited resources to cover and cope with the direct and indirect costs of an absence, it can be very disruptive.
Manage absence guidance
Further best practice advice and guidance to help your manage staff absence is included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook Section 19: Managing absence (PDF, 154K).
Manage absence templates
Sample templates are included in this section on managing staff absence that you can download and adapt specifically for your business purposes including:
- return to work interview format (DOC, 13K)
- example letter to employee seeking consent for a medical report from employee's GP (DOC, 14K)
- consent form for access to medical reports (DOC, 13K)
- summary of employee rights under the Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (NI) Order 1991 (DOC, 15K)
- request to employee's GP for medical assessment (DOC, 15K)
- sample letter to an occupational health doctor requesting opinion on fitness for work (DOC, 14K)
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Performance management and staff training templates
Sample letters and application forms to help you train and develop your staff, and monitor their performance.
Improving the skills of your staff can deliver real business benefits. It can increase their productivity, motivation and quality of work, and boost overall business profits and customer satisfaction. We have a number of free performance management and staff training templates that employers and HR professionals can use for their business.
Employers' Handbook: staff performance and training
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with staff performance, training and development are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 14: Managing employee performance (PDF, 229K)
- Section 15: Training and development (PDF, 69K)
Performance management templates
Agreeing appropriate objectives and making effective use of appraisals can improve your business performance and help you assess how well your employees are working.
If you're not sure where to start setting performance targets, download our sample agreement templates for different positions within the business:
- general performance agreement template (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for operatives (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for administrators (DOC, 15K)
- sample performance agreement - for managers (DOC, 14K)
Performance reviews templates
Download our two sample performance review form templates to help you assess employees' performance:
- sample performance review form (DOC, 18K)
- sample performance review form past and future performance (DOC, 16K)
Dealing with poor performance
Performance improvement measures can help you manage poor performance, and deal with your staff efficiently and fairly.
To see an overview of the measures required to deal with poor performance, download our formal performance improvement procedure flowchart (DOC, 20K).
Poor performance template letters
Use our downloadable sample letters to help you follow a fair and efficient performance improvement procedure when dealing with underperforming staff:
- sample letter of notice of performance improvement meeting (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of recorded verbal warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of first written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of final written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of dismissal or disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of outcome of appeal following disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
Training and development templates
Creating a training strategy usually involves assessing your training needs, determining the type of training best suited to your business and evaluating its effects to maximise the benefits.
To help get you started on the way to creating a successful training strategy, you can download and use the following training and development templates:
For further information, see training your staff and managing staff performance.
Training needs analysis tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on training needs analysis. You can view the full Invest NI training needs analysis tutorial.
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Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
Free templates to help employers and HR professionals handle any grievance, discipline, or dismissal situation fairly and in keeping with the law.
Even in well-run businesses, it may sometimes be necessary to deal with employee's grievances or disciplinary issues, or even dismissals. Having written rules and procedures for employee grievances or disciplinary issues may help you deal with them fairly and in keeping with employment law.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical templates to help you with staff grievances, disciplinary issues and dismissals are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 17: Employee grievances (PDF, 71K)
- Section 18: Disciplinary issues and dismissal (PDF, 143K)
For sample templates to help you deal with grievance, discipline, and dismissal situations, see the relevant sections below.
Grievance templates
Your grievance rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Download our sample letters and procedures templates to help you deal with grievances in your workplace:
- sample grievance procedure (DOC, 17K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - employee raising a grievance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - person against whom a grievance is raised (DOC, 14K)
Discipline and dismissal templates
Your disciplinary rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the LRA Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Failure to meet this requirement may result in extra compensation for the employee if they succeed in a tribunal claim.
Download our sample notices and procedures templates to help you deal with disciplinary issues in your workplace:
- sample disciplinary rules and procedures for misconduct (DOC, 29K)
- sample notice of the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the recorded disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of dismissal or disciplinary action to be taken (DOC, 12K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer after the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 15K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer, setting out the reasons for the proposed dismissal or action other than dismissal and arranging the meeting (DOC, 15K)
For further information, see handling grievances, disciplinary procedures, hearings and appeals and dismissing employees.
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Redundancy letters, forms and templates
Forms and templates to help employers manage the redundancy process including redundancy letter templates.
A redundancy situation can arise in the following circumstances:
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was so employed
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business in the place where the employee was so employed
- the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
- the requirements of the business for the employees to carry out work of a particular kind, in the place where they were so employed, has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
Employers' Handbook redundancy guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with redundancy are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including Section 22: Redundancy procedure (PDF, 199K)
Sample redundancy letters and documents
You can download the sample redundancy templates below to help you manage the redundancy process:
- redundancy ready reckoner table (DOC, 1MB)
- sample redundancy selection matrix template (DOC, 17K)
- sample redundancy letter for provisional selection for redundancy (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for invitation to final consultation (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for confirmation of redundancy (DOC, 16K)
- sample letter of offer of alternative role (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter for result of appeal (DOC, 14K)
- advance notification of redundancies form template (DOC, 21K)
For further information, see redundancy, restructures and change.
Alternatives to redundancy
You may wish to consider alternatives in order to avoid redundancies. For further guidance see Section 23: Lay-off and short-time working (PDF, 58K) of the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook.
Redundancy webinar
The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) redundancy webinar provides useful information on the topic of redundancy and how to ensure the redundancy process is managed fairly and in line with employment legislation.
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Other key HR policies and templates
Sample documents to help you develop employment policies that follow good practices and comply with legislation.
You do not have to have a staff policy on every single aspect of your business. However, as an employer, you must legally set out details of your dismissal/disciplinary procedures in writing and, if you employ five or more people, you must have a written health and safety policy.
In instances where there may be no legal requirement, it is still good practice to set out formal written policies so that workers understand what is expected of them and what they can expect in return.
Other sample employer templates and documents
To help you develop up-to-date and compliant employer policies and procedures, you can download, customise and use our templates and sample documents:
- sample meeting action list (DOC, 13K)
- sample alcohol and drug policy (DOC, 17K)
- social media, internet and email policy and guidance checklist (DOC, 15K)
- sample social media, internet and email security policy guidelines (DOC, 24K)
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of possible employment policies.
You should also consider developing policies on issues such as working time and time off, equality and diversity, bullying and harassment, training and performance management, and others.
To find more information on other relevant policies, see set up employment policies for your business.
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Other key HR policies and templates
In this guide:
- HR documents and templates
- Recruitment forms and templates
- Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
- Time off work policies and procedures
- Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
- Managing absence templates
- Performance management and staff training templates
- Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
- Redundancy letters, forms and templates
- Other key HR policies and templates
Recruitment forms and templates
Sample recruitment templates including forms, letters, and documents to help you recruit, shortlist and interview potential employees.
Recruitment and selection of new employees should always be considered carefully by any business regardless of their size. The people you employ will form an essential part of your business strategy and will contribute greatly to the success of your business.
Staff recruitment templates
To ensure you attract the best people, you will need to ensure that your recruitment process is fine-tuned, non-discriminatory, and tailored to your business needs. For further guidance see the Employer's Handbook Section 2: Recruiting new employees (PDF, 420K).
For an overview of the recruitment stages and general considerations, download our recruitment process flowchart (DOC, 87K).
For sample template recruitment documents to help with particular stages of the recruitment process, see below.
Templates for advertising your job vacancy
You will need to prepare a job description, a personnel specification, and an application form to advertise your job vacancy. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample template recruitment documents and forms:
- sample job description template (DOC, 14K)
- sample personnel specification template (DOC, 15K)
- sample recruitment advertisement template (DOC, 16K)
- sample job application form template (DOC, 18K)
- sample monitoring questionnaire for job applicants template (DOC, 20K)
Templates for shortlisting candidates
Once you receive replies from candidates to your job vacancy advertisement, you will need to draw up a shortlist and invite those shortlisted to an interview. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample shortlisting documentation templates:
- sample shortlisting record table template (DOC, 15K)
- shortlisting guidance (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of invitation to first interview template (DOC, 13K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following shortlisting exercise template (DOC, 13K)
Templates for interviewing candidates
The more preparation you do for the job interview, the easier it will be for both you and the candidate. To help you prepare and carry out the interview process correctly, download and read our factsheets on interviewing, and use our sample record of interview templates:
- sample interview record document template (DOC, 14K)
- sample interview report document template (DOC, 14K)
- preparing for job interviews factsheet (DOC, 14K)
- interview practicalities and structure (DOC, 14K)
- do's and don'ts of interviewing job applicants (DOC, 15K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following job interview template (DOC, 12K)
Read more on advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Recruitment and selection tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on recruitment and selection. You can view the full Invest NI recruitment & selection tutorial.
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Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
Use our sample job offer letters, induction plans, and contract of employment to welcome and start a new member of your staff.
The final stage of the recruitment process involves choosing the successful candidate and making them a job offer.
You will need to consider whether you wish to make a job offer that is conditional on satisfactory references and right to work checks. If your job offer is accepted, you should arrange an induction plan for your new starter and consider the terms of your contract of employment.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
For further guidance on job offers, inductions and employment contracts see the following sections of the Invest Northern Ireland Employer's Handbook:
For sample documents to help you conclude your recruitment exercise fairly and efficiently, see relevant sections below.
Job offers
The initial job offer may be made by telephone. This should help you quickly establish if the individual wants to accept the job you are offering.
If that is the case, you should follow up with a formal letter of offer, and include details of any conditions attached to the job offer, eg satisfactory references. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample job offer letter and reference check form:
- sample letter of job offer to successful candidate (DOC, 12K)
- sample reference check form (DOC, 12K)
Contract of employment
The moment a candidate unconditionally accepts your offer of a job, a contract of employment comes into existence. To help you draft a contract of employment suitable to your business needs and the role in question, download and use our sample contract of employment, as well as staff policy documents to be included in it:
- sample contract of employment (DOC, 46K)
- sample sickness/absence notification and pay procedure (DOC, 27K)
Even if you do not issue a written contract of employment, you are under a legal duty to provide most employees with a written statement of main employment particulars within two months of the start of their employment with you.
Induction
You should aim to introduce, familiarise and integrate your new employee into your business as quickly as possible. Early induction will not only provide new-starters with the information they need to settle in, but will also provide them with the knowledge and skills that will help them contribute to your business right from the start.
To help you devise your staff induction activities, download and use our sample induction plans:
See induction programme: what to include.
View all recruitment & Selection - Invest NI tutorial videos.
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Time off work policies and procedures
Download a sample working time opt-out agreement and steps to help you determine your workers' leave entitlement.
You should set your normal working hours in your employment contract, or written statement of employment. Unless you operate within certain sectors, you cannot force your workers to work for more than 48 hours per week on average.
Special working time rules apply to young people. Find further information on hours, rest breaks and the working week.
If your workers wish to work for longer than 48 hours per week, they can choose to opt out of the Working Time Regulations. This must be done voluntarily and in writing in order for you to comply with the law.
Download our sample working time opt-out agreement (DOC, 14K).
Remember that you can't force your workers to sign an opt-out agreement or to cancel it, though a worker can cancel it voluntarily after giving you appropriate notice.
Annual leave
Most workers are legally entitled to paid holidays/annual leave.
A worker's statutory paid holiday entitlement in Northern Ireland is 5.6 weeks. This amounts to 28 days for a worker working a five-day week. This can include public and bank holidays. See:
- Know how much holiday to give your staff
- Calculate your employees' holiday entitlement
- Bank and public holiday dates
The leave entitlement for part-time workers or those who are about to leave employment is calculated on a pro-rata basis. Use the following step-by-step guidance to calculate how much leave these workers may be entitled to:
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of part-time workers (DOC, 13K)
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of leavers (DOC, 13K)
For additional leave information, such us notice periods, restrictions and holiday pay, see know how much holiday to give your staff.
For further guidance see Employers' Handbook Section 4: Working hours, rest breaks and time off (PDF, 83K).
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Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
Sample letters and application forms to help you manage your workers' rights to maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave.
Your responsibilities in relation to rights of working parents - or parents to be - are explained in our maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave section.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you communicate with your workers in respect of their entitlements are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 8: Maternity leave and pay (PDF, 83K)
- Section 9: Paternity leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 10: Adoption leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 11: Shared parental leave and pay (PDF, 114K)
- Section 12: Parental leave, parental bereavement leave and time off for dependants (PDF, 82K)
Sample employer documents
You can download, customise and use sample documents from the handbook that are relevant to maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave:
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of maternity leave (DOC, 14K)
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of adoption leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample employee application for parental leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to employee of notification of postponement of parental leave (DOC, 13K)
- sample shared parental leave (birth) policy (DOC, 39K)
- sample shared parental leave (adoption) policy (DOC, 38K)
- sample confirmation of entitlement to shared parental leave (DOC, 27K)
- sample confirmation of shared parental leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave request to discuss leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave refusal of a discontinuous leave booking (DOC, 27K)
For help with administering paternity and adoption leave, use the maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay calculator for employers.
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Managing absence templates
Sample documents to help you manage staff absence with employment policies that follow good practice and comply with legislation.
Managing staff absence is a frequent and critical element to good people management within a business.
Absence causes difficulties both for the person who is absent and for the organisation. For small organisations in particular, where there are limited resources to cover and cope with the direct and indirect costs of an absence, it can be very disruptive.
Manage absence guidance
Further best practice advice and guidance to help your manage staff absence is included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook Section 19: Managing absence (PDF, 154K).
Manage absence templates
Sample templates are included in this section on managing staff absence that you can download and adapt specifically for your business purposes including:
- return to work interview format (DOC, 13K)
- example letter to employee seeking consent for a medical report from employee's GP (DOC, 14K)
- consent form for access to medical reports (DOC, 13K)
- summary of employee rights under the Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (NI) Order 1991 (DOC, 15K)
- request to employee's GP for medical assessment (DOC, 15K)
- sample letter to an occupational health doctor requesting opinion on fitness for work (DOC, 14K)
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Performance management and staff training templates
Sample letters and application forms to help you train and develop your staff, and monitor their performance.
Improving the skills of your staff can deliver real business benefits. It can increase their productivity, motivation and quality of work, and boost overall business profits and customer satisfaction. We have a number of free performance management and staff training templates that employers and HR professionals can use for their business.
Employers' Handbook: staff performance and training
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with staff performance, training and development are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 14: Managing employee performance (PDF, 229K)
- Section 15: Training and development (PDF, 69K)
Performance management templates
Agreeing appropriate objectives and making effective use of appraisals can improve your business performance and help you assess how well your employees are working.
If you're not sure where to start setting performance targets, download our sample agreement templates for different positions within the business:
- general performance agreement template (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for operatives (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for administrators (DOC, 15K)
- sample performance agreement - for managers (DOC, 14K)
Performance reviews templates
Download our two sample performance review form templates to help you assess employees' performance:
- sample performance review form (DOC, 18K)
- sample performance review form past and future performance (DOC, 16K)
Dealing with poor performance
Performance improvement measures can help you manage poor performance, and deal with your staff efficiently and fairly.
To see an overview of the measures required to deal with poor performance, download our formal performance improvement procedure flowchart (DOC, 20K).
Poor performance template letters
Use our downloadable sample letters to help you follow a fair and efficient performance improvement procedure when dealing with underperforming staff:
- sample letter of notice of performance improvement meeting (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of recorded verbal warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of first written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of final written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of dismissal or disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of outcome of appeal following disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
Training and development templates
Creating a training strategy usually involves assessing your training needs, determining the type of training best suited to your business and evaluating its effects to maximise the benefits.
To help get you started on the way to creating a successful training strategy, you can download and use the following training and development templates:
For further information, see training your staff and managing staff performance.
Training needs analysis tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on training needs analysis. You can view the full Invest NI training needs analysis tutorial.
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Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
Free templates to help employers and HR professionals handle any grievance, discipline, or dismissal situation fairly and in keeping with the law.
Even in well-run businesses, it may sometimes be necessary to deal with employee's grievances or disciplinary issues, or even dismissals. Having written rules and procedures for employee grievances or disciplinary issues may help you deal with them fairly and in keeping with employment law.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical templates to help you with staff grievances, disciplinary issues and dismissals are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 17: Employee grievances (PDF, 71K)
- Section 18: Disciplinary issues and dismissal (PDF, 143K)
For sample templates to help you deal with grievance, discipline, and dismissal situations, see the relevant sections below.
Grievance templates
Your grievance rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Download our sample letters and procedures templates to help you deal with grievances in your workplace:
- sample grievance procedure (DOC, 17K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - employee raising a grievance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - person against whom a grievance is raised (DOC, 14K)
Discipline and dismissal templates
Your disciplinary rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the LRA Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Failure to meet this requirement may result in extra compensation for the employee if they succeed in a tribunal claim.
Download our sample notices and procedures templates to help you deal with disciplinary issues in your workplace:
- sample disciplinary rules and procedures for misconduct (DOC, 29K)
- sample notice of the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the recorded disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of dismissal or disciplinary action to be taken (DOC, 12K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer after the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 15K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer, setting out the reasons for the proposed dismissal or action other than dismissal and arranging the meeting (DOC, 15K)
For further information, see handling grievances, disciplinary procedures, hearings and appeals and dismissing employees.
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Redundancy letters, forms and templates
Forms and templates to help employers manage the redundancy process including redundancy letter templates.
A redundancy situation can arise in the following circumstances:
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was so employed
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business in the place where the employee was so employed
- the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
- the requirements of the business for the employees to carry out work of a particular kind, in the place where they were so employed, has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
Employers' Handbook redundancy guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with redundancy are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including Section 22: Redundancy procedure (PDF, 199K)
Sample redundancy letters and documents
You can download the sample redundancy templates below to help you manage the redundancy process:
- redundancy ready reckoner table (DOC, 1MB)
- sample redundancy selection matrix template (DOC, 17K)
- sample redundancy letter for provisional selection for redundancy (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for invitation to final consultation (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for confirmation of redundancy (DOC, 16K)
- sample letter of offer of alternative role (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter for result of appeal (DOC, 14K)
- advance notification of redundancies form template (DOC, 21K)
For further information, see redundancy, restructures and change.
Alternatives to redundancy
You may wish to consider alternatives in order to avoid redundancies. For further guidance see Section 23: Lay-off and short-time working (PDF, 58K) of the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook.
Redundancy webinar
The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) redundancy webinar provides useful information on the topic of redundancy and how to ensure the redundancy process is managed fairly and in line with employment legislation.
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Other key HR policies and templates
Sample documents to help you develop employment policies that follow good practices and comply with legislation.
You do not have to have a staff policy on every single aspect of your business. However, as an employer, you must legally set out details of your dismissal/disciplinary procedures in writing and, if you employ five or more people, you must have a written health and safety policy.
In instances where there may be no legal requirement, it is still good practice to set out formal written policies so that workers understand what is expected of them and what they can expect in return.
Other sample employer templates and documents
To help you develop up-to-date and compliant employer policies and procedures, you can download, customise and use our templates and sample documents:
- sample meeting action list (DOC, 13K)
- sample alcohol and drug policy (DOC, 17K)
- social media, internet and email policy and guidance checklist (DOC, 15K)
- sample social media, internet and email security policy guidelines (DOC, 24K)
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of possible employment policies.
You should also consider developing policies on issues such as working time and time off, equality and diversity, bullying and harassment, training and performance management, and others.
To find more information on other relevant policies, see set up employment policies for your business.
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Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
In this guide:
- HR documents and templates
- Recruitment forms and templates
- Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
- Time off work policies and procedures
- Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
- Managing absence templates
- Performance management and staff training templates
- Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
- Redundancy letters, forms and templates
- Other key HR policies and templates
Recruitment forms and templates
Sample recruitment templates including forms, letters, and documents to help you recruit, shortlist and interview potential employees.
Recruitment and selection of new employees should always be considered carefully by any business regardless of their size. The people you employ will form an essential part of your business strategy and will contribute greatly to the success of your business.
Staff recruitment templates
To ensure you attract the best people, you will need to ensure that your recruitment process is fine-tuned, non-discriminatory, and tailored to your business needs. For further guidance see the Employer's Handbook Section 2: Recruiting new employees (PDF, 420K).
For an overview of the recruitment stages and general considerations, download our recruitment process flowchart (DOC, 87K).
For sample template recruitment documents to help with particular stages of the recruitment process, see below.
Templates for advertising your job vacancy
You will need to prepare a job description, a personnel specification, and an application form to advertise your job vacancy. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample template recruitment documents and forms:
- sample job description template (DOC, 14K)
- sample personnel specification template (DOC, 15K)
- sample recruitment advertisement template (DOC, 16K)
- sample job application form template (DOC, 18K)
- sample monitoring questionnaire for job applicants template (DOC, 20K)
Templates for shortlisting candidates
Once you receive replies from candidates to your job vacancy advertisement, you will need to draw up a shortlist and invite those shortlisted to an interview. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample shortlisting documentation templates:
- sample shortlisting record table template (DOC, 15K)
- shortlisting guidance (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of invitation to first interview template (DOC, 13K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following shortlisting exercise template (DOC, 13K)
Templates for interviewing candidates
The more preparation you do for the job interview, the easier it will be for both you and the candidate. To help you prepare and carry out the interview process correctly, download and read our factsheets on interviewing, and use our sample record of interview templates:
- sample interview record document template (DOC, 14K)
- sample interview report document template (DOC, 14K)
- preparing for job interviews factsheet (DOC, 14K)
- interview practicalities and structure (DOC, 14K)
- do's and don'ts of interviewing job applicants (DOC, 15K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following job interview template (DOC, 12K)
Read more on advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Recruitment and selection tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on recruitment and selection. You can view the full Invest NI recruitment & selection tutorial.
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Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
Use our sample job offer letters, induction plans, and contract of employment to welcome and start a new member of your staff.
The final stage of the recruitment process involves choosing the successful candidate and making them a job offer.
You will need to consider whether you wish to make a job offer that is conditional on satisfactory references and right to work checks. If your job offer is accepted, you should arrange an induction plan for your new starter and consider the terms of your contract of employment.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
For further guidance on job offers, inductions and employment contracts see the following sections of the Invest Northern Ireland Employer's Handbook:
For sample documents to help you conclude your recruitment exercise fairly and efficiently, see relevant sections below.
Job offers
The initial job offer may be made by telephone. This should help you quickly establish if the individual wants to accept the job you are offering.
If that is the case, you should follow up with a formal letter of offer, and include details of any conditions attached to the job offer, eg satisfactory references. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample job offer letter and reference check form:
- sample letter of job offer to successful candidate (DOC, 12K)
- sample reference check form (DOC, 12K)
Contract of employment
The moment a candidate unconditionally accepts your offer of a job, a contract of employment comes into existence. To help you draft a contract of employment suitable to your business needs and the role in question, download and use our sample contract of employment, as well as staff policy documents to be included in it:
- sample contract of employment (DOC, 46K)
- sample sickness/absence notification and pay procedure (DOC, 27K)
Even if you do not issue a written contract of employment, you are under a legal duty to provide most employees with a written statement of main employment particulars within two months of the start of their employment with you.
Induction
You should aim to introduce, familiarise and integrate your new employee into your business as quickly as possible. Early induction will not only provide new-starters with the information they need to settle in, but will also provide them with the knowledge and skills that will help them contribute to your business right from the start.
To help you devise your staff induction activities, download and use our sample induction plans:
See induction programme: what to include.
View all recruitment & Selection - Invest NI tutorial videos.
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Time off work policies and procedures
Download a sample working time opt-out agreement and steps to help you determine your workers' leave entitlement.
You should set your normal working hours in your employment contract, or written statement of employment. Unless you operate within certain sectors, you cannot force your workers to work for more than 48 hours per week on average.
Special working time rules apply to young people. Find further information on hours, rest breaks and the working week.
If your workers wish to work for longer than 48 hours per week, they can choose to opt out of the Working Time Regulations. This must be done voluntarily and in writing in order for you to comply with the law.
Download our sample working time opt-out agreement (DOC, 14K).
Remember that you can't force your workers to sign an opt-out agreement or to cancel it, though a worker can cancel it voluntarily after giving you appropriate notice.
Annual leave
Most workers are legally entitled to paid holidays/annual leave.
A worker's statutory paid holiday entitlement in Northern Ireland is 5.6 weeks. This amounts to 28 days for a worker working a five-day week. This can include public and bank holidays. See:
- Know how much holiday to give your staff
- Calculate your employees' holiday entitlement
- Bank and public holiday dates
The leave entitlement for part-time workers or those who are about to leave employment is calculated on a pro-rata basis. Use the following step-by-step guidance to calculate how much leave these workers may be entitled to:
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of part-time workers (DOC, 13K)
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of leavers (DOC, 13K)
For additional leave information, such us notice periods, restrictions and holiday pay, see know how much holiday to give your staff.
For further guidance see Employers' Handbook Section 4: Working hours, rest breaks and time off (PDF, 83K).
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Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
Sample letters and application forms to help you manage your workers' rights to maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave.
Your responsibilities in relation to rights of working parents - or parents to be - are explained in our maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave section.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you communicate with your workers in respect of their entitlements are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 8: Maternity leave and pay (PDF, 83K)
- Section 9: Paternity leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 10: Adoption leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 11: Shared parental leave and pay (PDF, 114K)
- Section 12: Parental leave, parental bereavement leave and time off for dependants (PDF, 82K)
Sample employer documents
You can download, customise and use sample documents from the handbook that are relevant to maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave:
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of maternity leave (DOC, 14K)
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of adoption leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample employee application for parental leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to employee of notification of postponement of parental leave (DOC, 13K)
- sample shared parental leave (birth) policy (DOC, 39K)
- sample shared parental leave (adoption) policy (DOC, 38K)
- sample confirmation of entitlement to shared parental leave (DOC, 27K)
- sample confirmation of shared parental leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave request to discuss leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave refusal of a discontinuous leave booking (DOC, 27K)
For help with administering paternity and adoption leave, use the maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay calculator for employers.
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Managing absence templates
Sample documents to help you manage staff absence with employment policies that follow good practice and comply with legislation.
Managing staff absence is a frequent and critical element to good people management within a business.
Absence causes difficulties both for the person who is absent and for the organisation. For small organisations in particular, where there are limited resources to cover and cope with the direct and indirect costs of an absence, it can be very disruptive.
Manage absence guidance
Further best practice advice and guidance to help your manage staff absence is included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook Section 19: Managing absence (PDF, 154K).
Manage absence templates
Sample templates are included in this section on managing staff absence that you can download and adapt specifically for your business purposes including:
- return to work interview format (DOC, 13K)
- example letter to employee seeking consent for a medical report from employee's GP (DOC, 14K)
- consent form for access to medical reports (DOC, 13K)
- summary of employee rights under the Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (NI) Order 1991 (DOC, 15K)
- request to employee's GP for medical assessment (DOC, 15K)
- sample letter to an occupational health doctor requesting opinion on fitness for work (DOC, 14K)
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Performance management and staff training templates
Sample letters and application forms to help you train and develop your staff, and monitor their performance.
Improving the skills of your staff can deliver real business benefits. It can increase their productivity, motivation and quality of work, and boost overall business profits and customer satisfaction. We have a number of free performance management and staff training templates that employers and HR professionals can use for their business.
Employers' Handbook: staff performance and training
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with staff performance, training and development are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 14: Managing employee performance (PDF, 229K)
- Section 15: Training and development (PDF, 69K)
Performance management templates
Agreeing appropriate objectives and making effective use of appraisals can improve your business performance and help you assess how well your employees are working.
If you're not sure where to start setting performance targets, download our sample agreement templates for different positions within the business:
- general performance agreement template (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for operatives (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for administrators (DOC, 15K)
- sample performance agreement - for managers (DOC, 14K)
Performance reviews templates
Download our two sample performance review form templates to help you assess employees' performance:
- sample performance review form (DOC, 18K)
- sample performance review form past and future performance (DOC, 16K)
Dealing with poor performance
Performance improvement measures can help you manage poor performance, and deal with your staff efficiently and fairly.
To see an overview of the measures required to deal with poor performance, download our formal performance improvement procedure flowchart (DOC, 20K).
Poor performance template letters
Use our downloadable sample letters to help you follow a fair and efficient performance improvement procedure when dealing with underperforming staff:
- sample letter of notice of performance improvement meeting (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of recorded verbal warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of first written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of final written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of dismissal or disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of outcome of appeal following disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
Training and development templates
Creating a training strategy usually involves assessing your training needs, determining the type of training best suited to your business and evaluating its effects to maximise the benefits.
To help get you started on the way to creating a successful training strategy, you can download and use the following training and development templates:
For further information, see training your staff and managing staff performance.
Training needs analysis tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on training needs analysis. You can view the full Invest NI training needs analysis tutorial.
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Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
Free templates to help employers and HR professionals handle any grievance, discipline, or dismissal situation fairly and in keeping with the law.
Even in well-run businesses, it may sometimes be necessary to deal with employee's grievances or disciplinary issues, or even dismissals. Having written rules and procedures for employee grievances or disciplinary issues may help you deal with them fairly and in keeping with employment law.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical templates to help you with staff grievances, disciplinary issues and dismissals are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 17: Employee grievances (PDF, 71K)
- Section 18: Disciplinary issues and dismissal (PDF, 143K)
For sample templates to help you deal with grievance, discipline, and dismissal situations, see the relevant sections below.
Grievance templates
Your grievance rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Download our sample letters and procedures templates to help you deal with grievances in your workplace:
- sample grievance procedure (DOC, 17K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - employee raising a grievance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - person against whom a grievance is raised (DOC, 14K)
Discipline and dismissal templates
Your disciplinary rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the LRA Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Failure to meet this requirement may result in extra compensation for the employee if they succeed in a tribunal claim.
Download our sample notices and procedures templates to help you deal with disciplinary issues in your workplace:
- sample disciplinary rules and procedures for misconduct (DOC, 29K)
- sample notice of the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the recorded disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of dismissal or disciplinary action to be taken (DOC, 12K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer after the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 15K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer, setting out the reasons for the proposed dismissal or action other than dismissal and arranging the meeting (DOC, 15K)
For further information, see handling grievances, disciplinary procedures, hearings and appeals and dismissing employees.
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Redundancy letters, forms and templates
Forms and templates to help employers manage the redundancy process including redundancy letter templates.
A redundancy situation can arise in the following circumstances:
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was so employed
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business in the place where the employee was so employed
- the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
- the requirements of the business for the employees to carry out work of a particular kind, in the place where they were so employed, has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
Employers' Handbook redundancy guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with redundancy are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including Section 22: Redundancy procedure (PDF, 199K)
Sample redundancy letters and documents
You can download the sample redundancy templates below to help you manage the redundancy process:
- redundancy ready reckoner table (DOC, 1MB)
- sample redundancy selection matrix template (DOC, 17K)
- sample redundancy letter for provisional selection for redundancy (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for invitation to final consultation (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for confirmation of redundancy (DOC, 16K)
- sample letter of offer of alternative role (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter for result of appeal (DOC, 14K)
- advance notification of redundancies form template (DOC, 21K)
For further information, see redundancy, restructures and change.
Alternatives to redundancy
You may wish to consider alternatives in order to avoid redundancies. For further guidance see Section 23: Lay-off and short-time working (PDF, 58K) of the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook.
Redundancy webinar
The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) redundancy webinar provides useful information on the topic of redundancy and how to ensure the redundancy process is managed fairly and in line with employment legislation.
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Other key HR policies and templates
Sample documents to help you develop employment policies that follow good practices and comply with legislation.
You do not have to have a staff policy on every single aspect of your business. However, as an employer, you must legally set out details of your dismissal/disciplinary procedures in writing and, if you employ five or more people, you must have a written health and safety policy.
In instances where there may be no legal requirement, it is still good practice to set out formal written policies so that workers understand what is expected of them and what they can expect in return.
Other sample employer templates and documents
To help you develop up-to-date and compliant employer policies and procedures, you can download, customise and use our templates and sample documents:
- sample meeting action list (DOC, 13K)
- sample alcohol and drug policy (DOC, 17K)
- social media, internet and email policy and guidance checklist (DOC, 15K)
- sample social media, internet and email security policy guidelines (DOC, 24K)
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of possible employment policies.
You should also consider developing policies on issues such as working time and time off, equality and diversity, bullying and harassment, training and performance management, and others.
To find more information on other relevant policies, see set up employment policies for your business.
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Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
In this guide:
- HR documents and templates
- Recruitment forms and templates
- Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
- Time off work policies and procedures
- Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
- Managing absence templates
- Performance management and staff training templates
- Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
- Redundancy letters, forms and templates
- Other key HR policies and templates
Recruitment forms and templates
Sample recruitment templates including forms, letters, and documents to help you recruit, shortlist and interview potential employees.
Recruitment and selection of new employees should always be considered carefully by any business regardless of their size. The people you employ will form an essential part of your business strategy and will contribute greatly to the success of your business.
Staff recruitment templates
To ensure you attract the best people, you will need to ensure that your recruitment process is fine-tuned, non-discriminatory, and tailored to your business needs. For further guidance see the Employer's Handbook Section 2: Recruiting new employees (PDF, 420K).
For an overview of the recruitment stages and general considerations, download our recruitment process flowchart (DOC, 87K).
For sample template recruitment documents to help with particular stages of the recruitment process, see below.
Templates for advertising your job vacancy
You will need to prepare a job description, a personnel specification, and an application form to advertise your job vacancy. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample template recruitment documents and forms:
- sample job description template (DOC, 14K)
- sample personnel specification template (DOC, 15K)
- sample recruitment advertisement template (DOC, 16K)
- sample job application form template (DOC, 18K)
- sample monitoring questionnaire for job applicants template (DOC, 20K)
Templates for shortlisting candidates
Once you receive replies from candidates to your job vacancy advertisement, you will need to draw up a shortlist and invite those shortlisted to an interview. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample shortlisting documentation templates:
- sample shortlisting record table template (DOC, 15K)
- shortlisting guidance (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of invitation to first interview template (DOC, 13K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following shortlisting exercise template (DOC, 13K)
Templates for interviewing candidates
The more preparation you do for the job interview, the easier it will be for both you and the candidate. To help you prepare and carry out the interview process correctly, download and read our factsheets on interviewing, and use our sample record of interview templates:
- sample interview record document template (DOC, 14K)
- sample interview report document template (DOC, 14K)
- preparing for job interviews factsheet (DOC, 14K)
- interview practicalities and structure (DOC, 14K)
- do's and don'ts of interviewing job applicants (DOC, 15K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following job interview template (DOC, 12K)
Read more on advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Recruitment and selection tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on recruitment and selection. You can view the full Invest NI recruitment & selection tutorial.
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Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
Use our sample job offer letters, induction plans, and contract of employment to welcome and start a new member of your staff.
The final stage of the recruitment process involves choosing the successful candidate and making them a job offer.
You will need to consider whether you wish to make a job offer that is conditional on satisfactory references and right to work checks. If your job offer is accepted, you should arrange an induction plan for your new starter and consider the terms of your contract of employment.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
For further guidance on job offers, inductions and employment contracts see the following sections of the Invest Northern Ireland Employer's Handbook:
For sample documents to help you conclude your recruitment exercise fairly and efficiently, see relevant sections below.
Job offers
The initial job offer may be made by telephone. This should help you quickly establish if the individual wants to accept the job you are offering.
If that is the case, you should follow up with a formal letter of offer, and include details of any conditions attached to the job offer, eg satisfactory references. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample job offer letter and reference check form:
- sample letter of job offer to successful candidate (DOC, 12K)
- sample reference check form (DOC, 12K)
Contract of employment
The moment a candidate unconditionally accepts your offer of a job, a contract of employment comes into existence. To help you draft a contract of employment suitable to your business needs and the role in question, download and use our sample contract of employment, as well as staff policy documents to be included in it:
- sample contract of employment (DOC, 46K)
- sample sickness/absence notification and pay procedure (DOC, 27K)
Even if you do not issue a written contract of employment, you are under a legal duty to provide most employees with a written statement of main employment particulars within two months of the start of their employment with you.
Induction
You should aim to introduce, familiarise and integrate your new employee into your business as quickly as possible. Early induction will not only provide new-starters with the information they need to settle in, but will also provide them with the knowledge and skills that will help them contribute to your business right from the start.
To help you devise your staff induction activities, download and use our sample induction plans:
See induction programme: what to include.
View all recruitment & Selection - Invest NI tutorial videos.
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Time off work policies and procedures
Download a sample working time opt-out agreement and steps to help you determine your workers' leave entitlement.
You should set your normal working hours in your employment contract, or written statement of employment. Unless you operate within certain sectors, you cannot force your workers to work for more than 48 hours per week on average.
Special working time rules apply to young people. Find further information on hours, rest breaks and the working week.
If your workers wish to work for longer than 48 hours per week, they can choose to opt out of the Working Time Regulations. This must be done voluntarily and in writing in order for you to comply with the law.
Download our sample working time opt-out agreement (DOC, 14K).
Remember that you can't force your workers to sign an opt-out agreement or to cancel it, though a worker can cancel it voluntarily after giving you appropriate notice.
Annual leave
Most workers are legally entitled to paid holidays/annual leave.
A worker's statutory paid holiday entitlement in Northern Ireland is 5.6 weeks. This amounts to 28 days for a worker working a five-day week. This can include public and bank holidays. See:
- Know how much holiday to give your staff
- Calculate your employees' holiday entitlement
- Bank and public holiday dates
The leave entitlement for part-time workers or those who are about to leave employment is calculated on a pro-rata basis. Use the following step-by-step guidance to calculate how much leave these workers may be entitled to:
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of part-time workers (DOC, 13K)
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of leavers (DOC, 13K)
For additional leave information, such us notice periods, restrictions and holiday pay, see know how much holiday to give your staff.
For further guidance see Employers' Handbook Section 4: Working hours, rest breaks and time off (PDF, 83K).
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Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
Sample letters and application forms to help you manage your workers' rights to maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave.
Your responsibilities in relation to rights of working parents - or parents to be - are explained in our maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave section.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you communicate with your workers in respect of their entitlements are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 8: Maternity leave and pay (PDF, 83K)
- Section 9: Paternity leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 10: Adoption leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 11: Shared parental leave and pay (PDF, 114K)
- Section 12: Parental leave, parental bereavement leave and time off for dependants (PDF, 82K)
Sample employer documents
You can download, customise and use sample documents from the handbook that are relevant to maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave:
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of maternity leave (DOC, 14K)
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of adoption leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample employee application for parental leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to employee of notification of postponement of parental leave (DOC, 13K)
- sample shared parental leave (birth) policy (DOC, 39K)
- sample shared parental leave (adoption) policy (DOC, 38K)
- sample confirmation of entitlement to shared parental leave (DOC, 27K)
- sample confirmation of shared parental leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave request to discuss leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave refusal of a discontinuous leave booking (DOC, 27K)
For help with administering paternity and adoption leave, use the maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay calculator for employers.
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Managing absence templates
Sample documents to help you manage staff absence with employment policies that follow good practice and comply with legislation.
Managing staff absence is a frequent and critical element to good people management within a business.
Absence causes difficulties both for the person who is absent and for the organisation. For small organisations in particular, where there are limited resources to cover and cope with the direct and indirect costs of an absence, it can be very disruptive.
Manage absence guidance
Further best practice advice and guidance to help your manage staff absence is included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook Section 19: Managing absence (PDF, 154K).
Manage absence templates
Sample templates are included in this section on managing staff absence that you can download and adapt specifically for your business purposes including:
- return to work interview format (DOC, 13K)
- example letter to employee seeking consent for a medical report from employee's GP (DOC, 14K)
- consent form for access to medical reports (DOC, 13K)
- summary of employee rights under the Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (NI) Order 1991 (DOC, 15K)
- request to employee's GP for medical assessment (DOC, 15K)
- sample letter to an occupational health doctor requesting opinion on fitness for work (DOC, 14K)
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Performance management and staff training templates
Sample letters and application forms to help you train and develop your staff, and monitor their performance.
Improving the skills of your staff can deliver real business benefits. It can increase their productivity, motivation and quality of work, and boost overall business profits and customer satisfaction. We have a number of free performance management and staff training templates that employers and HR professionals can use for their business.
Employers' Handbook: staff performance and training
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with staff performance, training and development are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 14: Managing employee performance (PDF, 229K)
- Section 15: Training and development (PDF, 69K)
Performance management templates
Agreeing appropriate objectives and making effective use of appraisals can improve your business performance and help you assess how well your employees are working.
If you're not sure where to start setting performance targets, download our sample agreement templates for different positions within the business:
- general performance agreement template (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for operatives (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for administrators (DOC, 15K)
- sample performance agreement - for managers (DOC, 14K)
Performance reviews templates
Download our two sample performance review form templates to help you assess employees' performance:
- sample performance review form (DOC, 18K)
- sample performance review form past and future performance (DOC, 16K)
Dealing with poor performance
Performance improvement measures can help you manage poor performance, and deal with your staff efficiently and fairly.
To see an overview of the measures required to deal with poor performance, download our formal performance improvement procedure flowchart (DOC, 20K).
Poor performance template letters
Use our downloadable sample letters to help you follow a fair and efficient performance improvement procedure when dealing with underperforming staff:
- sample letter of notice of performance improvement meeting (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of recorded verbal warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of first written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of final written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of dismissal or disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of outcome of appeal following disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
Training and development templates
Creating a training strategy usually involves assessing your training needs, determining the type of training best suited to your business and evaluating its effects to maximise the benefits.
To help get you started on the way to creating a successful training strategy, you can download and use the following training and development templates:
For further information, see training your staff and managing staff performance.
Training needs analysis tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on training needs analysis. You can view the full Invest NI training needs analysis tutorial.
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Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
Free templates to help employers and HR professionals handle any grievance, discipline, or dismissal situation fairly and in keeping with the law.
Even in well-run businesses, it may sometimes be necessary to deal with employee's grievances or disciplinary issues, or even dismissals. Having written rules and procedures for employee grievances or disciplinary issues may help you deal with them fairly and in keeping with employment law.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical templates to help you with staff grievances, disciplinary issues and dismissals are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 17: Employee grievances (PDF, 71K)
- Section 18: Disciplinary issues and dismissal (PDF, 143K)
For sample templates to help you deal with grievance, discipline, and dismissal situations, see the relevant sections below.
Grievance templates
Your grievance rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Download our sample letters and procedures templates to help you deal with grievances in your workplace:
- sample grievance procedure (DOC, 17K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - employee raising a grievance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - person against whom a grievance is raised (DOC, 14K)
Discipline and dismissal templates
Your disciplinary rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the LRA Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Failure to meet this requirement may result in extra compensation for the employee if they succeed in a tribunal claim.
Download our sample notices and procedures templates to help you deal with disciplinary issues in your workplace:
- sample disciplinary rules and procedures for misconduct (DOC, 29K)
- sample notice of the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the recorded disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of dismissal or disciplinary action to be taken (DOC, 12K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer after the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 15K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer, setting out the reasons for the proposed dismissal or action other than dismissal and arranging the meeting (DOC, 15K)
For further information, see handling grievances, disciplinary procedures, hearings and appeals and dismissing employees.
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Redundancy letters, forms and templates
Forms and templates to help employers manage the redundancy process including redundancy letter templates.
A redundancy situation can arise in the following circumstances:
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was so employed
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business in the place where the employee was so employed
- the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
- the requirements of the business for the employees to carry out work of a particular kind, in the place where they were so employed, has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
Employers' Handbook redundancy guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with redundancy are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including Section 22: Redundancy procedure (PDF, 199K)
Sample redundancy letters and documents
You can download the sample redundancy templates below to help you manage the redundancy process:
- redundancy ready reckoner table (DOC, 1MB)
- sample redundancy selection matrix template (DOC, 17K)
- sample redundancy letter for provisional selection for redundancy (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for invitation to final consultation (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for confirmation of redundancy (DOC, 16K)
- sample letter of offer of alternative role (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter for result of appeal (DOC, 14K)
- advance notification of redundancies form template (DOC, 21K)
For further information, see redundancy, restructures and change.
Alternatives to redundancy
You may wish to consider alternatives in order to avoid redundancies. For further guidance see Section 23: Lay-off and short-time working (PDF, 58K) of the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook.
Redundancy webinar
The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) redundancy webinar provides useful information on the topic of redundancy and how to ensure the redundancy process is managed fairly and in line with employment legislation.
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Other key HR policies and templates
Sample documents to help you develop employment policies that follow good practices and comply with legislation.
You do not have to have a staff policy on every single aspect of your business. However, as an employer, you must legally set out details of your dismissal/disciplinary procedures in writing and, if you employ five or more people, you must have a written health and safety policy.
In instances where there may be no legal requirement, it is still good practice to set out formal written policies so that workers understand what is expected of them and what they can expect in return.
Other sample employer templates and documents
To help you develop up-to-date and compliant employer policies and procedures, you can download, customise and use our templates and sample documents:
- sample meeting action list (DOC, 13K)
- sample alcohol and drug policy (DOC, 17K)
- social media, internet and email policy and guidance checklist (DOC, 15K)
- sample social media, internet and email security policy guidelines (DOC, 24K)
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of possible employment policies.
You should also consider developing policies on issues such as working time and time off, equality and diversity, bullying and harassment, training and performance management, and others.
To find more information on other relevant policies, see set up employment policies for your business.
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Time off work policies and procedures
In this guide:
- HR documents and templates
- Recruitment forms and templates
- Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
- Time off work policies and procedures
- Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
- Managing absence templates
- Performance management and staff training templates
- Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
- Redundancy letters, forms and templates
- Other key HR policies and templates
Recruitment forms and templates
Sample recruitment templates including forms, letters, and documents to help you recruit, shortlist and interview potential employees.
Recruitment and selection of new employees should always be considered carefully by any business regardless of their size. The people you employ will form an essential part of your business strategy and will contribute greatly to the success of your business.
Staff recruitment templates
To ensure you attract the best people, you will need to ensure that your recruitment process is fine-tuned, non-discriminatory, and tailored to your business needs. For further guidance see the Employer's Handbook Section 2: Recruiting new employees (PDF, 420K).
For an overview of the recruitment stages and general considerations, download our recruitment process flowchart (DOC, 87K).
For sample template recruitment documents to help with particular stages of the recruitment process, see below.
Templates for advertising your job vacancy
You will need to prepare a job description, a personnel specification, and an application form to advertise your job vacancy. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample template recruitment documents and forms:
- sample job description template (DOC, 14K)
- sample personnel specification template (DOC, 15K)
- sample recruitment advertisement template (DOC, 16K)
- sample job application form template (DOC, 18K)
- sample monitoring questionnaire for job applicants template (DOC, 20K)
Templates for shortlisting candidates
Once you receive replies from candidates to your job vacancy advertisement, you will need to draw up a shortlist and invite those shortlisted to an interview. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample shortlisting documentation templates:
- sample shortlisting record table template (DOC, 15K)
- shortlisting guidance (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of invitation to first interview template (DOC, 13K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following shortlisting exercise template (DOC, 13K)
Templates for interviewing candidates
The more preparation you do for the job interview, the easier it will be for both you and the candidate. To help you prepare and carry out the interview process correctly, download and read our factsheets on interviewing, and use our sample record of interview templates:
- sample interview record document template (DOC, 14K)
- sample interview report document template (DOC, 14K)
- preparing for job interviews factsheet (DOC, 14K)
- interview practicalities and structure (DOC, 14K)
- do's and don'ts of interviewing job applicants (DOC, 15K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following job interview template (DOC, 12K)
Read more on advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Recruitment and selection tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on recruitment and selection. You can view the full Invest NI recruitment & selection tutorial.
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Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
Use our sample job offer letters, induction plans, and contract of employment to welcome and start a new member of your staff.
The final stage of the recruitment process involves choosing the successful candidate and making them a job offer.
You will need to consider whether you wish to make a job offer that is conditional on satisfactory references and right to work checks. If your job offer is accepted, you should arrange an induction plan for your new starter and consider the terms of your contract of employment.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
For further guidance on job offers, inductions and employment contracts see the following sections of the Invest Northern Ireland Employer's Handbook:
For sample documents to help you conclude your recruitment exercise fairly and efficiently, see relevant sections below.
Job offers
The initial job offer may be made by telephone. This should help you quickly establish if the individual wants to accept the job you are offering.
If that is the case, you should follow up with a formal letter of offer, and include details of any conditions attached to the job offer, eg satisfactory references. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample job offer letter and reference check form:
- sample letter of job offer to successful candidate (DOC, 12K)
- sample reference check form (DOC, 12K)
Contract of employment
The moment a candidate unconditionally accepts your offer of a job, a contract of employment comes into existence. To help you draft a contract of employment suitable to your business needs and the role in question, download and use our sample contract of employment, as well as staff policy documents to be included in it:
- sample contract of employment (DOC, 46K)
- sample sickness/absence notification and pay procedure (DOC, 27K)
Even if you do not issue a written contract of employment, you are under a legal duty to provide most employees with a written statement of main employment particulars within two months of the start of their employment with you.
Induction
You should aim to introduce, familiarise and integrate your new employee into your business as quickly as possible. Early induction will not only provide new-starters with the information they need to settle in, but will also provide them with the knowledge and skills that will help them contribute to your business right from the start.
To help you devise your staff induction activities, download and use our sample induction plans:
See induction programme: what to include.
View all recruitment & Selection - Invest NI tutorial videos.
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Time off work policies and procedures
Download a sample working time opt-out agreement and steps to help you determine your workers' leave entitlement.
You should set your normal working hours in your employment contract, or written statement of employment. Unless you operate within certain sectors, you cannot force your workers to work for more than 48 hours per week on average.
Special working time rules apply to young people. Find further information on hours, rest breaks and the working week.
If your workers wish to work for longer than 48 hours per week, they can choose to opt out of the Working Time Regulations. This must be done voluntarily and in writing in order for you to comply with the law.
Download our sample working time opt-out agreement (DOC, 14K).
Remember that you can't force your workers to sign an opt-out agreement or to cancel it, though a worker can cancel it voluntarily after giving you appropriate notice.
Annual leave
Most workers are legally entitled to paid holidays/annual leave.
A worker's statutory paid holiday entitlement in Northern Ireland is 5.6 weeks. This amounts to 28 days for a worker working a five-day week. This can include public and bank holidays. See:
- Know how much holiday to give your staff
- Calculate your employees' holiday entitlement
- Bank and public holiday dates
The leave entitlement for part-time workers or those who are about to leave employment is calculated on a pro-rata basis. Use the following step-by-step guidance to calculate how much leave these workers may be entitled to:
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of part-time workers (DOC, 13K)
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of leavers (DOC, 13K)
For additional leave information, such us notice periods, restrictions and holiday pay, see know how much holiday to give your staff.
For further guidance see Employers' Handbook Section 4: Working hours, rest breaks and time off (PDF, 83K).
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Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
Sample letters and application forms to help you manage your workers' rights to maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave.
Your responsibilities in relation to rights of working parents - or parents to be - are explained in our maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave section.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you communicate with your workers in respect of their entitlements are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 8: Maternity leave and pay (PDF, 83K)
- Section 9: Paternity leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 10: Adoption leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 11: Shared parental leave and pay (PDF, 114K)
- Section 12: Parental leave, parental bereavement leave and time off for dependants (PDF, 82K)
Sample employer documents
You can download, customise and use sample documents from the handbook that are relevant to maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave:
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of maternity leave (DOC, 14K)
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of adoption leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample employee application for parental leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to employee of notification of postponement of parental leave (DOC, 13K)
- sample shared parental leave (birth) policy (DOC, 39K)
- sample shared parental leave (adoption) policy (DOC, 38K)
- sample confirmation of entitlement to shared parental leave (DOC, 27K)
- sample confirmation of shared parental leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave request to discuss leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave refusal of a discontinuous leave booking (DOC, 27K)
For help with administering paternity and adoption leave, use the maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay calculator for employers.
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Managing absence templates
Sample documents to help you manage staff absence with employment policies that follow good practice and comply with legislation.
Managing staff absence is a frequent and critical element to good people management within a business.
Absence causes difficulties both for the person who is absent and for the organisation. For small organisations in particular, where there are limited resources to cover and cope with the direct and indirect costs of an absence, it can be very disruptive.
Manage absence guidance
Further best practice advice and guidance to help your manage staff absence is included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook Section 19: Managing absence (PDF, 154K).
Manage absence templates
Sample templates are included in this section on managing staff absence that you can download and adapt specifically for your business purposes including:
- return to work interview format (DOC, 13K)
- example letter to employee seeking consent for a medical report from employee's GP (DOC, 14K)
- consent form for access to medical reports (DOC, 13K)
- summary of employee rights under the Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (NI) Order 1991 (DOC, 15K)
- request to employee's GP for medical assessment (DOC, 15K)
- sample letter to an occupational health doctor requesting opinion on fitness for work (DOC, 14K)
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Performance management and staff training templates
Sample letters and application forms to help you train and develop your staff, and monitor their performance.
Improving the skills of your staff can deliver real business benefits. It can increase their productivity, motivation and quality of work, and boost overall business profits and customer satisfaction. We have a number of free performance management and staff training templates that employers and HR professionals can use for their business.
Employers' Handbook: staff performance and training
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with staff performance, training and development are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 14: Managing employee performance (PDF, 229K)
- Section 15: Training and development (PDF, 69K)
Performance management templates
Agreeing appropriate objectives and making effective use of appraisals can improve your business performance and help you assess how well your employees are working.
If you're not sure where to start setting performance targets, download our sample agreement templates for different positions within the business:
- general performance agreement template (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for operatives (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for administrators (DOC, 15K)
- sample performance agreement - for managers (DOC, 14K)
Performance reviews templates
Download our two sample performance review form templates to help you assess employees' performance:
- sample performance review form (DOC, 18K)
- sample performance review form past and future performance (DOC, 16K)
Dealing with poor performance
Performance improvement measures can help you manage poor performance, and deal with your staff efficiently and fairly.
To see an overview of the measures required to deal with poor performance, download our formal performance improvement procedure flowchart (DOC, 20K).
Poor performance template letters
Use our downloadable sample letters to help you follow a fair and efficient performance improvement procedure when dealing with underperforming staff:
- sample letter of notice of performance improvement meeting (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of recorded verbal warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of first written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of final written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of dismissal or disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of outcome of appeal following disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
Training and development templates
Creating a training strategy usually involves assessing your training needs, determining the type of training best suited to your business and evaluating its effects to maximise the benefits.
To help get you started on the way to creating a successful training strategy, you can download and use the following training and development templates:
For further information, see training your staff and managing staff performance.
Training needs analysis tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on training needs analysis. You can view the full Invest NI training needs analysis tutorial.
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Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
Free templates to help employers and HR professionals handle any grievance, discipline, or dismissal situation fairly and in keeping with the law.
Even in well-run businesses, it may sometimes be necessary to deal with employee's grievances or disciplinary issues, or even dismissals. Having written rules and procedures for employee grievances or disciplinary issues may help you deal with them fairly and in keeping with employment law.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical templates to help you with staff grievances, disciplinary issues and dismissals are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 17: Employee grievances (PDF, 71K)
- Section 18: Disciplinary issues and dismissal (PDF, 143K)
For sample templates to help you deal with grievance, discipline, and dismissal situations, see the relevant sections below.
Grievance templates
Your grievance rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Download our sample letters and procedures templates to help you deal with grievances in your workplace:
- sample grievance procedure (DOC, 17K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - employee raising a grievance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - person against whom a grievance is raised (DOC, 14K)
Discipline and dismissal templates
Your disciplinary rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the LRA Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Failure to meet this requirement may result in extra compensation for the employee if they succeed in a tribunal claim.
Download our sample notices and procedures templates to help you deal with disciplinary issues in your workplace:
- sample disciplinary rules and procedures for misconduct (DOC, 29K)
- sample notice of the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the recorded disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of dismissal or disciplinary action to be taken (DOC, 12K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer after the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 15K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer, setting out the reasons for the proposed dismissal or action other than dismissal and arranging the meeting (DOC, 15K)
For further information, see handling grievances, disciplinary procedures, hearings and appeals and dismissing employees.
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Redundancy letters, forms and templates
Forms and templates to help employers manage the redundancy process including redundancy letter templates.
A redundancy situation can arise in the following circumstances:
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was so employed
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business in the place where the employee was so employed
- the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
- the requirements of the business for the employees to carry out work of a particular kind, in the place where they were so employed, has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
Employers' Handbook redundancy guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with redundancy are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including Section 22: Redundancy procedure (PDF, 199K)
Sample redundancy letters and documents
You can download the sample redundancy templates below to help you manage the redundancy process:
- redundancy ready reckoner table (DOC, 1MB)
- sample redundancy selection matrix template (DOC, 17K)
- sample redundancy letter for provisional selection for redundancy (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for invitation to final consultation (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for confirmation of redundancy (DOC, 16K)
- sample letter of offer of alternative role (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter for result of appeal (DOC, 14K)
- advance notification of redundancies form template (DOC, 21K)
For further information, see redundancy, restructures and change.
Alternatives to redundancy
You may wish to consider alternatives in order to avoid redundancies. For further guidance see Section 23: Lay-off and short-time working (PDF, 58K) of the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook.
Redundancy webinar
The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) redundancy webinar provides useful information on the topic of redundancy and how to ensure the redundancy process is managed fairly and in line with employment legislation.
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Other key HR policies and templates
Sample documents to help you develop employment policies that follow good practices and comply with legislation.
You do not have to have a staff policy on every single aspect of your business. However, as an employer, you must legally set out details of your dismissal/disciplinary procedures in writing and, if you employ five or more people, you must have a written health and safety policy.
In instances where there may be no legal requirement, it is still good practice to set out formal written policies so that workers understand what is expected of them and what they can expect in return.
Other sample employer templates and documents
To help you develop up-to-date and compliant employer policies and procedures, you can download, customise and use our templates and sample documents:
- sample meeting action list (DOC, 13K)
- sample alcohol and drug policy (DOC, 17K)
- social media, internet and email policy and guidance checklist (DOC, 15K)
- sample social media, internet and email security policy guidelines (DOC, 24K)
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of possible employment policies.
You should also consider developing policies on issues such as working time and time off, equality and diversity, bullying and harassment, training and performance management, and others.
To find more information on other relevant policies, see set up employment policies for your business.
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Recruitment forms and templates
In this guide:
- HR documents and templates
- Recruitment forms and templates
- Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
- Time off work policies and procedures
- Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
- Managing absence templates
- Performance management and staff training templates
- Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
- Redundancy letters, forms and templates
- Other key HR policies and templates
Recruitment forms and templates
Sample recruitment templates including forms, letters, and documents to help you recruit, shortlist and interview potential employees.
Recruitment and selection of new employees should always be considered carefully by any business regardless of their size. The people you employ will form an essential part of your business strategy and will contribute greatly to the success of your business.
Staff recruitment templates
To ensure you attract the best people, you will need to ensure that your recruitment process is fine-tuned, non-discriminatory, and tailored to your business needs. For further guidance see the Employer's Handbook Section 2: Recruiting new employees (PDF, 420K).
For an overview of the recruitment stages and general considerations, download our recruitment process flowchart (DOC, 87K).
For sample template recruitment documents to help with particular stages of the recruitment process, see below.
Templates for advertising your job vacancy
You will need to prepare a job description, a personnel specification, and an application form to advertise your job vacancy. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample template recruitment documents and forms:
- sample job description template (DOC, 14K)
- sample personnel specification template (DOC, 15K)
- sample recruitment advertisement template (DOC, 16K)
- sample job application form template (DOC, 18K)
- sample monitoring questionnaire for job applicants template (DOC, 20K)
Templates for shortlisting candidates
Once you receive replies from candidates to your job vacancy advertisement, you will need to draw up a shortlist and invite those shortlisted to an interview. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample shortlisting documentation templates:
- sample shortlisting record table template (DOC, 15K)
- shortlisting guidance (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of invitation to first interview template (DOC, 13K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following shortlisting exercise template (DOC, 13K)
Templates for interviewing candidates
The more preparation you do for the job interview, the easier it will be for both you and the candidate. To help you prepare and carry out the interview process correctly, download and read our factsheets on interviewing, and use our sample record of interview templates:
- sample interview record document template (DOC, 14K)
- sample interview report document template (DOC, 14K)
- preparing for job interviews factsheet (DOC, 14K)
- interview practicalities and structure (DOC, 14K)
- do's and don'ts of interviewing job applicants (DOC, 15K)
- sample rejection letter to applicant following job interview template (DOC, 12K)
Read more on advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Recruitment and selection tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on recruitment and selection. You can view the full Invest NI recruitment & selection tutorial.
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Job offers, inductions and new starts templates
Use our sample job offer letters, induction plans, and contract of employment to welcome and start a new member of your staff.
The final stage of the recruitment process involves choosing the successful candidate and making them a job offer.
You will need to consider whether you wish to make a job offer that is conditional on satisfactory references and right to work checks. If your job offer is accepted, you should arrange an induction plan for your new starter and consider the terms of your contract of employment.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
For further guidance on job offers, inductions and employment contracts see the following sections of the Invest Northern Ireland Employer's Handbook:
For sample documents to help you conclude your recruitment exercise fairly and efficiently, see relevant sections below.
Job offers
The initial job offer may be made by telephone. This should help you quickly establish if the individual wants to accept the job you are offering.
If that is the case, you should follow up with a formal letter of offer, and include details of any conditions attached to the job offer, eg satisfactory references. To help you do this, you can download and use our sample job offer letter and reference check form:
- sample letter of job offer to successful candidate (DOC, 12K)
- sample reference check form (DOC, 12K)
Contract of employment
The moment a candidate unconditionally accepts your offer of a job, a contract of employment comes into existence. To help you draft a contract of employment suitable to your business needs and the role in question, download and use our sample contract of employment, as well as staff policy documents to be included in it:
- sample contract of employment (DOC, 46K)
- sample sickness/absence notification and pay procedure (DOC, 27K)
Even if you do not issue a written contract of employment, you are under a legal duty to provide most employees with a written statement of main employment particulars within two months of the start of their employment with you.
Induction
You should aim to introduce, familiarise and integrate your new employee into your business as quickly as possible. Early induction will not only provide new-starters with the information they need to settle in, but will also provide them with the knowledge and skills that will help them contribute to your business right from the start.
To help you devise your staff induction activities, download and use our sample induction plans:
See induction programme: what to include.
View all recruitment & Selection - Invest NI tutorial videos.
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Time off work policies and procedures
Download a sample working time opt-out agreement and steps to help you determine your workers' leave entitlement.
You should set your normal working hours in your employment contract, or written statement of employment. Unless you operate within certain sectors, you cannot force your workers to work for more than 48 hours per week on average.
Special working time rules apply to young people. Find further information on hours, rest breaks and the working week.
If your workers wish to work for longer than 48 hours per week, they can choose to opt out of the Working Time Regulations. This must be done voluntarily and in writing in order for you to comply with the law.
Download our sample working time opt-out agreement (DOC, 14K).
Remember that you can't force your workers to sign an opt-out agreement or to cancel it, though a worker can cancel it voluntarily after giving you appropriate notice.
Annual leave
Most workers are legally entitled to paid holidays/annual leave.
A worker's statutory paid holiday entitlement in Northern Ireland is 5.6 weeks. This amounts to 28 days for a worker working a five-day week. This can include public and bank holidays. See:
- Know how much holiday to give your staff
- Calculate your employees' holiday entitlement
- Bank and public holiday dates
The leave entitlement for part-time workers or those who are about to leave employment is calculated on a pro-rata basis. Use the following step-by-step guidance to calculate how much leave these workers may be entitled to:
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of part-time workers (DOC, 13K)
- download steps for determining leave entitlement of leavers (DOC, 13K)
For additional leave information, such us notice periods, restrictions and holiday pay, see know how much holiday to give your staff.
For further guidance see Employers' Handbook Section 4: Working hours, rest breaks and time off (PDF, 83K).
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Maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave letters and forms
Sample letters and application forms to help you manage your workers' rights to maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave.
Your responsibilities in relation to rights of working parents - or parents to be - are explained in our maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave section.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you communicate with your workers in respect of their entitlements are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 8: Maternity leave and pay (PDF, 83K)
- Section 9: Paternity leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 10: Adoption leave and pay (PDF, 71K)
- Section 11: Shared parental leave and pay (PDF, 114K)
- Section 12: Parental leave, parental bereavement leave and time off for dependants (PDF, 82K)
Sample employer documents
You can download, customise and use sample documents from the handbook that are relevant to maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave:
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of maternity leave (DOC, 14K)
- model letter for employers to acknowledge notification of adoption leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample employee application for parental leave (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to employee of notification of postponement of parental leave (DOC, 13K)
- sample shared parental leave (birth) policy (DOC, 39K)
- sample shared parental leave (adoption) policy (DOC, 38K)
- sample confirmation of entitlement to shared parental leave (DOC, 27K)
- sample confirmation of shared parental leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave request to discuss leave booking (DOC, 27K)
- sample shared parental leave refusal of a discontinuous leave booking (DOC, 27K)
For help with administering paternity and adoption leave, use the maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay calculator for employers.
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Managing absence templates
Sample documents to help you manage staff absence with employment policies that follow good practice and comply with legislation.
Managing staff absence is a frequent and critical element to good people management within a business.
Absence causes difficulties both for the person who is absent and for the organisation. For small organisations in particular, where there are limited resources to cover and cope with the direct and indirect costs of an absence, it can be very disruptive.
Manage absence guidance
Further best practice advice and guidance to help your manage staff absence is included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook Section 19: Managing absence (PDF, 154K).
Manage absence templates
Sample templates are included in this section on managing staff absence that you can download and adapt specifically for your business purposes including:
- return to work interview format (DOC, 13K)
- example letter to employee seeking consent for a medical report from employee's GP (DOC, 14K)
- consent form for access to medical reports (DOC, 13K)
- summary of employee rights under the Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (NI) Order 1991 (DOC, 15K)
- request to employee's GP for medical assessment (DOC, 15K)
- sample letter to an occupational health doctor requesting opinion on fitness for work (DOC, 14K)
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Performance management and staff training templates
Sample letters and application forms to help you train and develop your staff, and monitor their performance.
Improving the skills of your staff can deliver real business benefits. It can increase their productivity, motivation and quality of work, and boost overall business profits and customer satisfaction. We have a number of free performance management and staff training templates that employers and HR professionals can use for their business.
Employers' Handbook: staff performance and training
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with staff performance, training and development are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 14: Managing employee performance (PDF, 229K)
- Section 15: Training and development (PDF, 69K)
Performance management templates
Agreeing appropriate objectives and making effective use of appraisals can improve your business performance and help you assess how well your employees are working.
If you're not sure where to start setting performance targets, download our sample agreement templates for different positions within the business:
- general performance agreement template (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for operatives (DOC, 13K)
- sample performance agreement - for administrators (DOC, 15K)
- sample performance agreement - for managers (DOC, 14K)
Performance reviews templates
Download our two sample performance review form templates to help you assess employees' performance:
- sample performance review form (DOC, 18K)
- sample performance review form past and future performance (DOC, 16K)
Dealing with poor performance
Performance improvement measures can help you manage poor performance, and deal with your staff efficiently and fairly.
To see an overview of the measures required to deal with poor performance, download our formal performance improvement procedure flowchart (DOC, 20K).
Poor performance template letters
Use our downloadable sample letters to help you follow a fair and efficient performance improvement procedure when dealing with underperforming staff:
- sample letter of notice of performance improvement meeting (DOC, 13K)
- sample letter of recorded verbal warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of first written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of final written warning due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of dismissal or disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of outcome of appeal following disciplinary action due to poor performance (DOC, 14K)
Training and development templates
Creating a training strategy usually involves assessing your training needs, determining the type of training best suited to your business and evaluating its effects to maximise the benefits.
To help get you started on the way to creating a successful training strategy, you can download and use the following training and development templates:
For further information, see training your staff and managing staff performance.
Training needs analysis tutorial videos
The embedded video below is an introduction to a tutorial on training needs analysis. You can view the full Invest NI training needs analysis tutorial.
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Grievance and disciplinary procedures and templates
Free templates to help employers and HR professionals handle any grievance, discipline, or dismissal situation fairly and in keeping with the law.
Even in well-run businesses, it may sometimes be necessary to deal with employee's grievances or disciplinary issues, or even dismissals. Having written rules and procedures for employee grievances or disciplinary issues may help you deal with them fairly and in keeping with employment law.
Specific Employers' Handbook guidance
Further best practice advice and practical templates to help you with staff grievances, disciplinary issues and dismissals are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including:
- Section 17: Employee grievances (PDF, 71K)
- Section 18: Disciplinary issues and dismissal (PDF, 143K)
For sample templates to help you deal with grievance, discipline, and dismissal situations, see the relevant sections below.
Grievance templates
Your grievance rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Download our sample letters and procedures templates to help you deal with grievances in your workplace:
- sample grievance procedure (DOC, 17K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - employee raising a grievance (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter of invitation to investigatory meeting - person against whom a grievance is raised (DOC, 14K)
Discipline and dismissal templates
Your disciplinary rules and procedures should be set out in writing and follow the good practice principles set out in the LRA Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Failure to meet this requirement may result in extra compensation for the employee if they succeed in a tribunal claim.
Download our sample notices and procedures templates to help you deal with disciplinary issues in your workplace:
- sample disciplinary rules and procedures for misconduct (DOC, 29K)
- sample notice of the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the recorded disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the disciplinary warning (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of dismissal or disciplinary action to be taken (DOC, 12K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer after the disciplinary meeting (DOC, 15K)
- sample notice of the appeal meeting against dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample notice of the result of the appeal against the dismissal or disciplinary action (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter to be sent by the employer, setting out the reasons for the proposed dismissal or action other than dismissal and arranging the meeting (DOC, 15K)
For further information, see handling grievances, disciplinary procedures, hearings and appeals and dismissing employees.
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Redundancy letters, forms and templates
Forms and templates to help employers manage the redundancy process including redundancy letter templates.
A redundancy situation can arise in the following circumstances:
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was so employed
- the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business in the place where the employee was so employed
- the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
- the requirements of the business for the employees to carry out work of a particular kind, in the place where they were so employed, has ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish
Employers' Handbook redundancy guidance
Further best practice advice and practical documents to help you with redundancy are included in the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook including Section 22: Redundancy procedure (PDF, 199K)
Sample redundancy letters and documents
You can download the sample redundancy templates below to help you manage the redundancy process:
- redundancy ready reckoner table (DOC, 1MB)
- sample redundancy selection matrix template (DOC, 17K)
- sample redundancy letter for provisional selection for redundancy (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for invitation to final consultation (DOC, 14K)
- sample redundancy letter for confirmation of redundancy (DOC, 16K)
- sample letter of offer of alternative role (DOC, 14K)
- sample letter for result of appeal (DOC, 14K)
- advance notification of redundancies form template (DOC, 21K)
For further information, see redundancy, restructures and change.
Alternatives to redundancy
You may wish to consider alternatives in order to avoid redundancies. For further guidance see Section 23: Lay-off and short-time working (PDF, 58K) of the Invest Northern Ireland Employers' Handbook.
Redundancy webinar
The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) redundancy webinar provides useful information on the topic of redundancy and how to ensure the redundancy process is managed fairly and in line with employment legislation.
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Other key HR policies and templates
Sample documents to help you develop employment policies that follow good practices and comply with legislation.
You do not have to have a staff policy on every single aspect of your business. However, as an employer, you must legally set out details of your dismissal/disciplinary procedures in writing and, if you employ five or more people, you must have a written health and safety policy.
In instances where there may be no legal requirement, it is still good practice to set out formal written policies so that workers understand what is expected of them and what they can expect in return.
Other sample employer templates and documents
To help you develop up-to-date and compliant employer policies and procedures, you can download, customise and use our templates and sample documents:
- sample meeting action list (DOC, 13K)
- sample alcohol and drug policy (DOC, 17K)
- social media, internet and email policy and guidance checklist (DOC, 15K)
- sample social media, internet and email security policy guidelines (DOC, 24K)
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of possible employment policies.
You should also consider developing policies on issues such as working time and time off, equality and diversity, bullying and harassment, training and performance management, and others.
To find more information on other relevant policies, see set up employment policies for your business.
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Paying trade union subscriptions
The role of trade unions and their representatives
How employers can work with trade unions on collective bargaining, information and consultation, and attendance at disciplinary and grievance hearings.
Although trade unions look after the interests of their members, they also recognise the advantages of working in partnership with employers. This is because a successful, profitable business is good for workers and therefore good for the union and its members.
An employer and a recognised trade union interact with the workplace in a number of ways, as set out below.
Trade unions: negotiating collective agreements
If you recognise a trade union in your workplace, you will probably have agreed with the union to bargain with it about the terms and conditions of employment of those workers who fall within a defined bargaining unit.
Sometimes, that bargaining unit will include all workers but it is common for the unit to include just certain categories of workers, eg production line operatives or technicians.
The objective of such collective bargaining is to conclude a collective agreement with the trade union. Where an independent trade union is recognised, the employer is obliged to disclose information to the trade union to facilitate the bargaining process.
Read Labour Relations Agency guidance on disclosure of information to trade unions for collective bargaining purposes.
A collective agreement is between a recognised trade union (or group of unions) and an employer (or groups of employers). Most typically, they set out the terms and conditions - eg pay, benefits, and working time - to be included in the employment contracts of the workers in the bargaining unit. Other collective agreements are purely procedural and regulate the working relationship between the union(s) and the employer(s).
A collective agreement isn't legally enforceable unless it:
- is in writing
- states that it's meant to be legally enforceable
In the UK, most collective agreements are not legally enforceable.
For more information on collective bargaining and collective agreements, see recognising and derecognising a trade union.
Trade unions: Informing and consulting
Under certain circumstances, you must inform - and consult with - representatives of a recognised trade union about:
- collective redundancies - see redundancy: the options
- transfers of business ownership - see responsibilities to employees if you buy or sell a business
- occupational and personal pension schemes - see know your legal obligations on pensions
- health and safety - see consult your employees on health and safety
However, you could enter a voluntary agreement with a trade union to inform and consult the union about broader business and workplace issues on a regular, ongoing basis. The union may want to set up a joint consultative committee specifically for this purpose.
For further information, see how to inform and consult your employees.
Trade unions: representing workers at disciplinary and grievance hearing
Employees and other workers have the right to be accompanied at a disciplinary or grievance hearing. They can choose to be accompanied by a co-worker or a union representative. Often, the union representative will be a workplace representative who is also a co-worker.
Non and partly unionised workplaces
You may have to inform and consult other workplace representatives - known as employee representatives - where you:
- Don't recognise any trade union in your workplace.
- Do recognise a union (or unions) in your workplace but not all your workers are represented by that union (or those unions). This may be because they do not belong to the bargaining unit for which the trade union is recognised.
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Advantages of trade union recognition
How a recognised union can advise employers and workers on key issues.
Some employers prefer to deal directly with their workers - or their elected representatives - without trade union involvement.
However, recognising and working closely with a trade union has a number of advantages.
Single point of contact
Having a single body for negotiating terms and conditions for workers is simpler than dealing with workers individually.
However, once you have agreed to this collective style of negotiating, you'll be obliged to disclose certain information to the union for collective bargaining purposes - see recognising and derecognising a trade union.
Worker involvement
If you negotiate terms and conditions and consult on workplace issues with a recognised union:
- your workers are likely to feel more involved in the way the business is run
- you can encourage trust and commitment among the workforce
In turn, these may help your business by improving retention rates.
Experience of employment relations
Trade unions represent not only the workers in your business but many others in similar, related organisations. Therefore, they're likely to have a broad perspective on many issues affecting your organisation.
Union representatives with experience in employment relations in particular are a useful source of legal and good-practice advice on HR and employment law issues. This experience may be especially useful during difficult times, eg during proposed collective redundancies or business transfers - see the role of trade unions and their representatives.
If you can show the union representatives that you are interested to hear about your workers' concerns, they in turn may help get your message across to their members. Even unpopular decisions may be more acceptable to your workers if you can persuade them and their union that a change is necessary for the continued health of the business. For more information, see how to inform and consult your employees.
Informing and consulting with experienced union representatives - together with input from workers - can also help you make better-informed business decisions in general, eg in relation to shift patterns or the kind of equipment you should invest in.
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Improving relations with trade union representatives
How to ensure that relations with trade union officials run as smoothly as possible.
As an employer you have certain responsibilities towards union representatives who are your employees. However, you can improve relations with representatives and their union members by offering them help to carry out their administrative duties.
Time off work for trade union duties
If you recognise a trade union, it is normal for that trade union to appoint or elect one or more local workplace representative(s).
Employees who are such representatives of an independent, recognised trade union are entitled to reasonable time off work with pay for union duties and to undergo union training at an appropriate time.
In addition, such workplace representatives, in common with other members of the recognised trade union, are entitled to reasonable time off without pay to engage in union activities, eg to attend the annual conference of the trade union.
When arranging time off, union representatives and the employer are expected to consider the effect of their absence in terms of health and safety, inconvenience for the employer and the safety of the public. See trade union membership rights.
Read Labour Relations Agency (LRA) guidance on time off for trade union duties and activities.
Information and consultation
It is a good idea to:
- inform representatives of recognised trade unions about important developments in the business that may affect their working conditions
- consult them before implementing such changes
You have specific legal obligations to inform and consult union representatives on certain matters - see the role of trade unions and their representatives.
Use of company facilities
To help union representatives carry out their duties, you could:
- allow them use of company facilities, eg office space, telephone and email access
- help with union administration, eg by deducting subscriptions from employees' wages, something known as 'check-off'
If relations with trade unions break down
If relations between you and your employees and/or their unions deteriorate and you can't find a solution, outside help may be needed, eg from the Labour Relations Agency (LRA), to improve relations or settle any dispute. See our guide on industrial disputes.
The LRA offers voluntary collective conciliation services to employees and employers experiencing collective disputes.
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Paying trade union subscriptions
How you can help your workers make payments to their union via your payroll system.
Some trade union members pay their union subscriptions by deduction from their wages. The employer passes these payments directly to their union. These arrangements are commonly known as the 'check-off'.
Administering the check-off
Where check-off arrangements exist, you may lawfully make deductions only where the worker has given you their written consent and has not subsequently withdrawn that consent.
The consent must be signed and dated and contain their authorisation to check-off deductions being made from their wages. The authorisation document is effective from the date on which the worker signs it and remains valid until it is withdrawn.
You can pre-print consent forms as long as the worker signs and dates the form personally.
A union can obtain the written authorisation and then forward it to you. However, you remain responsible for ensuring that deductions are not made unlawfully.
A worker who has union subscriptions deducted from their wages by their employer may make a complaint to an industrial tribunal against the employer if the deduction was made without proper authorisation.
The duration of check-off arrangements
You are not obliged to keep making check-off deductions indefinitely. Check-off is a voluntary arrangement, and you have no statutory duty either to operate it at all or to continue to do so having started.
However, if you have entered into a contractual agreement with workers to operate check-off, you could be in breach of contract if you stopped the arrangement.
Worker's withdrawal of consent to the check-off
If a worker wants to withdraw their consent to the check-off, they must write to you notifying you that they no longer wish to have check-off deductions made. They must allow you reasonable time to stop the deductions.
The role of the union
The union has no statutory role in administering the check-off.
However, you can involve the union in carrying out your statutory duties with regard to check-off.
You could, for example, ask the union to help you get initial consent from its members. You may also choose to charge the union for the administration involved in providing the service of collecting its members' subscriptions.
However, it remains your responsibility to ensure that you act lawfully when you make check-off deductions.
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Payment into trade union political funds
How you can help your workers make payments to their trade union’s political funds.
Some trade unions have established 'political funds', which they use to finance their political activities. Where individual union members pay subscriptions into a political fund, via the so-called political levy, the employer often collects it at the same time as the member's other union subscriptions.
Northern Ireland trade union members are legally exempt from contributing to a trade union's political fund. Any member who wishes to pay the political levy must 'contract in' to the political fund. This requirement applies to all Northern Ireland union members, regardless of where their union is headquartered.
A member who does not contract in, or having contracted in subsequently contracts out, is exempt from contributing to the political fund. Any deduction by a trade union of an amount to be paid to a political fund, without a written 'contracting in' notice is unlawful.
A member who initially contracts in and then subsequently decides to contract out must do so in writing.
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