Casual employment contracts for fixed term

It's not fair... I just want to do it. Being honest here. We can only do what's best for ourselves. Anyway thanks for all the suggestions.

 

You should move to Mumbai

 

Thanks for the suggestion, a bit racist but will consider.

 

Why racist?

Does Mumbai have laws restricting the employment of casuals like in Australia?

 

Does anyone have a link to this? Was it for all industries and also retrospectively in timeframe? Would be interesting to read up on.

 

On the Fair Work Australia website.

 

In Mumbai, wages are so low and traffic is so bad that employing casuals is not practical.

 

If you're asking people to.commit to a minimum length of employment then you need to commit to them having a minimum amount of work too, which would take you away from casuals and towards part time

6 month commitment with the threat of penalties but with no promise of hours and absolute flexibility on your end is not a fair deal for your employees and would not hold up if the agreement or any resulting penaltyh was challenged IMO

 

Pretending that part of their existing compensation is at risk? Your employees are are going to see through that and the fact you are trying it on will probably drive exactly the opposite behavior you are after.

 

The youth of today really are crap. Back in my day we could whip our serfs but now we can't even tie them to a terribly one sided arrangement

 

Nothing racist about it and as my pic shows im a rich Indian man with a penchant for gold and outstanding facial hair.

Im assuming the reference was to the lack.of.rights many employees, particularly those on low wages, have in countries like India and that is something I would never want to.see here

 

Except any low/minimum wage employee there is arguably casual and at the mercy of their employer

 

All the replies are fair, I accept the criticism.

I know it's not possible from a legal standpoint and I did state at the start I didn't care about enforceability.

I guess I was hoping to get a pragmatic response, something along the lines of "yes a fixed term casual is a bit of a legal paradox but what a lot of small business do is abc or alternatively / combined with xyz".

We treat our people well, otherwise we wouldn't be a sustainable business. Some people tend to look a little too hard for things to get outraged about. I'm simply in need of a strategy to deal with a small minority of problematic staff who aren't yet worth letting go, but at the same time can't be fully trusted with important duties / training investment etc.

 

A good employment lawyer who used to advise a business I was involved with told me - No employment contract can be enforced (by the employer) when it really comes to it. You can ask for two weeks notice etc but if they say "toss it" then there is nothing you can do to make them work. You cant withhold pay etc.All you do is appeal to their common sense and good judgement to avoid a reputation issue.

In senior roles where there is a serious risk of intellectual property being migrated, stolen or lost more stringent conditions can be imposed but blatant you cannot accept a job in the industry type causes may be a restraint of trade and unfair and then unenforceable.

Other ways to encourage delayed departure can be to voluntarily pay a bonus if they give x weeks notice and a higher bonus if its XX weeks (eg 2 / 3+ weeks). (We used to pay $300 per week for giving notice of at least two weeks on top of normal pay) The cost may assist them to stay onboard and even train their replacement !! The problem is determining what is an incentive v's not worth the effort.

 

What about a deed of agreement? I had to sign one when I got a redundancy from Amex

 

I think you have to accept that there is always going to be small percentage of staff that you hire who, for whatever reason, turn out to be "problematic" for your business. In the same way that there will also be a small percentage that you hire who will turn out to be solid gold.