Contract of Employment and Processes

[labourgure]

You open a new business, you want to employ a few people but you are not sure about the Labour Laws in South Africa, you need to know if your employees will work through a bargaining council when having disputes or will your disputes being resolved by the ccma.
All newly appointed employees must get a contact of employment, after the probation period you may give them a letter of appointment as well. From day 1 it is very important to give each employee a complete job description, explaining what it is what you expect from the employee.
If the employee fails to comply with your requirements you still need to do an employee performance assessment with him, trying to bring him/her to the standard you request, you cannot just dismiss a person without having proof that you tried to help the hapless employee.
Always be fair, when you need to give a warning to that, when the employee refuse to sign get a witness to sign with you, indicating that the employee refuse to sign the warning. After each warning has a consultation process with the employee explaining to him what it is he/she has done wrong and give corrective measures with that
After three warnings you may have a disciplinary enquiry, it all depends on the misconduct before you decide on a sanction should the verdict be guilty. Give the employee enough time to prepare, allow representation and always give the employee a chance to state his case, best practice is never to give a verdict immediately after a hearing, adjourn the hearing and go think it through before deciding on a sanction.
Always give your sanction in writing, give the employee a copy of the minutes of the hearing, explain he/she has the right to appeal and if needed have an appeal hearing when the sanction was dismissal
The above in short in short a description of how strict labour laws have become, if you do not have the time to follow all these rules and regulations you get someone like us to handle all your labour related matters.