At some point, you will need your employees to work overtime. But there are strict laws about what you can and can’t ask your employees to do.

You can’t require or allow an employee to work more than 10 hours’ overtime a week (BCEA S10(1)(b)

You can negotiate an agreement with your employee or the representative union to work longer overtime, but even then you can’t require or allow an employee to work more than 12 hours in total on any one day.

Remember: If you are covered by a bargaining council agreement or sectoral determination, you should check how much overtime is permitted for your industry or sector as the provisions could be different from those of the BCEA.

It is important here to reach out to us to guide you in following the right procedure.

Question:

Our Company has a “casual business” dress code, but one of our employees doesn’t seem to understand what is appropriate to wear to the office.

We would like to set up a dress code policy, but have no idea where to start, without trampling on employees’ rights, egos, and flair, which we recognise is a very personal thing. Please can you advise?

Answer:

The first step would be to communicate the change and why you would like to have this policy implemented.
Your policy must contain details of what the employees can wear to work.
Make sure that your dress code is in line with anti-discrimination regulations.

Present the draft code to your employees and management for their input. This will ensure better buy-in from staff and the policy will be received more positively.

Make sure that new hires are made aware of this code during the onboarding process.

It does happen that in certain industries where you work with specialised people who are hard to replace that the option to increase the employee’s notice period seems justifiable.

If the employee is already in your employment then you need to be cognisant of the fact that the change can’t be implemented unilaterally. Both parties are bound to the contract and consent will have to be obtained from the employee if you wish to extend their notice period.

There is no statutory definition for moonlighting. It is when your employee works for another person or has another job for which he is getting paid, over and above what you pay him.

Moonlighting itself is not illegal. The underlying principle is that the employee has a duty to act in your best interest – which means devoting all their time and attention to your business during working hours, and not engaging in any conflicts of interests, during or after work hours.

You can prevent your employee in his contract of employment from working for anyone else or becoming involved with anything or anyone else that could prejudice you.

You can discipline the employee if he breaches that obligation.

If an employee takes time off that doesn’t qualify as any type of leave (e.g. sick leave, annual leave etc.), you don’t have to pay the employee for the time off. However, by agreement with the employee, you can deduct it from their annual leave entitlement.

Doctor’s appointments could follow the same route i.e. you can deduct the time off by agreement from his annual leave entitlement.

5 day worker – Employees can work up to a maximum of 45 ordinary hours of work per week. This includes meal intervals.

Thus employees can work 9 ordinary hours a day if they work a 5 day week. They would be entitled to 1 hour meal intervals which may, by agreement, be reduced to 30 minute meal intervals.

Despite the fact that the employee’s contract of employment states that “The company reserves the right to move the employee to another branch within the business, should it be required”, the employer must still consult the employee about this transfer. If the employee refuses the transfer to the other branch, you must initiate a section 189 process. This is a restructuring process.

It may mean that you will need to retrench the employee that refuses to transfer to the other branch. You need to tell them that this is based on the operational requirements of the business.

The position you are offering this employee should be a reasonable alternative position. The terms & conditions of employment, salary, job functions, level of responsibility and job grade should remain the same.

You must treat the leave the employee requires to recover from an injury on duty and/or for an operation arising from such an injury as normal sick leave.

This is the case even though the employee was injured on duty and has submitted a claim for compensation to the Commissioner under COIDA.

If the employee has exhausted their sick leave, any further leave they require to recover from the injury would be annual leave or unpaid leave unless the employer decides to grant her further paid sick leave.