Discussion Details

this ( Contractual agreement) is to be implemented today, as we are going to hire a new employee as Milton's Replacement. 

And, please find the attached draft for the permanent employment contract

please update here when this is implemented and BEING ROLLED OUT.

 

also still awaiting update on teh Permanent employement contract.

 

OK, sure. Thanks

Daniel, this looks fine.

Just one thing... the firs clause section is about termination - its a very negative start to a new employement contract - move this to become the last clause.

 

@OTHER MANAGERS - please be sure to look through this document as well incase we've overlooked something.

 

Boss, please find the attached draft agreement for the contractual employees and let us know your further suggestions on this. 

Sure, I will prepare both of the drafts soon and reach you before implementation. 
 

@daniel please show me the final draft of both contracts before implementing.

 

also there are other FORMS you need for formalising thigns, like sign that staff agree to XYZ.

Cool, then we all agree on the updated contract. Daniel will get into action to finalize this with all existing and new employees.

furhtermore as of late we hire people on JE role anyways, which means automatically they come on a contractual agreement and then get promoted onto GE which owuld be a permanent role.

This make sense Ross, the end result is the same so im ok with your suggestion.

Hi Rob, Regarding public holidays - the total number is still the same. We just swapped a few of the original holidays with the local holidays. If a client is off, the employee should work on internal projects as usual. Also, we can do swapping for some real-time clients (i.e. Whizzle) where people will work on our public holidays and will take off on client holidays. However, this can be handled unofficially on a case-by-case basis. Regarding your other two comments about contractual hiring/probation - I suggest the following: * We hire all data entry people on a contractual contract for 6 months. Even if a data entry project lasts longer than 6 months, we can hire a new batch and release the old one. This will minimize our risk of getting overstaffed for the sudden cancellation of a larger project. However, if we see someone from the batch has potential, we can always keep him under a permanent contract. * For VA/techy people, I suggest we hire them on a regular contract as they may not like the contractual job. We can extend the probation to 6 months if the performance is not satisfactory in the first three months.

i have 2 questions about the updated holiday calendars:

1. is it still same total number  of days or...?

2. in teh case that some clients WILL BE OFF during the clients public holiday - what will we do with our staff? it will be mandatory to keep working - so you need a plan for those days... to ensure staff remain productive.

HI Daniel i have reviewed your findings from labour office. ive made few comments on teh sheet.

So the final output will be 2 contracts, some people on contractual agreement, and our oldest employees on permanent contracts... and basically over time people graduate onto permanent contracts.

 

Boss,please let us know your further instructions on this 

Hi Rob, 

Please see the attached calendars that  includes a few mandatory public holidays of BD 

Boss, please see the attachment that contains the update of the conversation with labor officers.

I have gone thorugh the new Employment Contract Draft, here are few points Daniel you need to go through and recheck with Labour Office.

You need to really quiz them – and if possible they must have some kind of RULE BOOK that we can read through and understand the detailed structure:

 

1. MOST IMPROTANTLY – we need to see how this contract can be RE-STRUCTURED as a CONTRACTUAL JOB – the fact of the matter is our business is of this nature.
   If this cannot be achieved then the following items need to be looked at, but I would like to know why this would fail as the labour office has already specific there is a such job type as “contractual job”.
   composing our employee contract as a Contractual Job saves us from unnecessary hassle. But it means employees would be nervous or whatever.. but we managers know we will continue to treat and handle everyone the same way as we have always done.

 

 

1. You got the right idea on composing the salary structure, the basic needs to be mininmal, and then other factors such as housing factor etc make up the rest of the salary.
   It is very important to keep the basic amount at the MINIMAL level, this protects the company in terms of severance payment requirement. This is usual practice in Dubai and other Asian countries. (it doesn’t exist in uk).

 

1. What rules does labour office have for probationary period? It might be important to extend probation period to 4 months or 6 months – depending on what rules they have. E.g. during probation employee has no benefits, or whatever. This needs to eb looked into.

 

1. Clause 4.1 and 4.2 are conflicting. Employee can give 2 months, but employee has to give 4 months. This doesn’t add up. We may be missing something here, sub clauses or something. Please look into this again.

 

1. Clause 4.7 states; After submitting the resignation letter to the Employer, the Employee has to hand over all the, responsibilities before leaving and completes any pending tasks without taking any kind of leaves from work.
   This would come under gross misconduct and needs to be tied to one of the dismissable cases in 4.6.

 

1. Clause 5.2 – break requirement – are there any rules regarding breaks for employees? Maybe we are giving too much? Or too less?

 

1. Clause 6.4 – employee can take 14 days sick leave. And what happens if employee takes more than that – what is that considered? Some kind of dismissable misconduct as per 4.6? there has to be an indirect connection somewhere in the labour rules – otherwise companies would be stuck with a abusive worker.

 

1. Section 8 – need a explicity clause stating there should be no contact with client in any shape or form upon leaving the company, or upon leaving the client engagement whilst still in employment.
   need a sub -clause stating the penalty for doing this -some kind of financial reimbursement to the company.

 

 

Hi Guys,

 

Some key points here that doesn’t make sense – Daniel you will need to clarify with the labour office:

 

1. Company registration
   
   Lets get this done if its not been done yet – that’s a default thing that should be done anyways.

 

1. We may need to make some changes to our holiday and leave policies, such as adding mandatory public holidays in Bangladesh to our calendar
   
   daniel show me the revamped holiday calendar, I need to see it’s suitability with clients (current and future). Adding more bd holidays means removing some foreign holidays to keep the same balance.

 

 

1. We can lay off employees, but we must give them at least 1 month's notice or a basic salary of 1 month. For employees who will work less than 1 year, we can give them 15 days' notice or 50% of a basic salary.

This is standard everywhere, and its better for company and employee. Problem is employees were not honouring this, and we had to reduce it to 15 days. So now we have the labour office support to managing this. So this is a good thing. Both parties should give 1 month notice to be fair.

 

1. We must also keep documentation to support our decision to lay off an employee. If we need to hire an employee with the same skills and designation in the future, we must call, email, and mail the laid-off employee to offer them the opportunity to rejoin.

We do this anyways – we always want the previous employee back so this is implemented already as part of our ‘unwritten policy’.

 

1. We must offer employees at least a 5% annual increment.
   
   this one doesn’t make sense to be honest – no authority can dictate what payrise someone should get -this is totally dependent on business finance. Please double check this. Any rule like this would strangle companies in the region.

 

1. Employees who work less than 1 year are not eligible for paid leave. Employees who will work more than 1 year will earn 1 paid leave for every 18 working days. Casual leave and sick leave are unpaid.
   
   We have this kind of policy already. It basically means about 12 days paid leave a year.

 

1. There is no legal support or protection for contractual jobs in Bangladesh.
   
   This is the loophole we need to use to our side – thuink about structuring our new employment contract as a Contractual Job – because that’s what it basically is – as long as we have a client we have a job, if the client is lost, we risk losing our job – that is CONTRACTUAL JOB.

 

1. Employees who will work less than 6 months can be released immediately
   
   Personally I don’t like this, as I feel it is important to be fair to another human being and give him/her some time to find another job if possible. At least 2 weeks is fair, we are dealing with humans afterall.

 

1. The government strictly monitors fire safety in workplaces. We must have at least 1 fire extinguisher for every 500 square feet of office space

 

This is critical actually, we need to action this right away if it hasn’t been done yet. Safety is important, I don’t know how I didn’t even think of this, because I always think about safety in my mind.

 

1. All recruitment and dismissal documents must be kept in both physical and electronic formats. Both the employer and employee must retain physical copies of these documents in case of any future appeals.

 

What this basically means is everything must be documented. Even for example someone taking paid leave – get them to sign something that says “I accept taking paid leave for xx/xx/xx. Or someone agreeing to UPL – get them to sign that they are agreeing. Document everything from now on.

 

1. I visited the labor office today and received a complaint from one of our existing staff members about Aminur Rahman's (Khukon) misbehavior. The labor officers interrogated me regarding the complaint. Still, I strongly denied it, emphasizing that Staff India does not tolerate such behavior and that all managers interact with their subordinates respectfully.

 

What kind of bullshit is this? How people speak to each other, deal with each other is a human thing – tehre can be no outside authority dictating this. Id like to know what is the complaint and how or what basis can the labour office bother to have any ‘input to say something’ in this matter.
so now 2 staff we're fighting in the office - the labour office will waste their time wiht this? complete nonesense.

 

1. But I'm order to release an employee without any valid cause, we have to give them 4 months notice or payment on lieu of the notice period.

 

This one doesn’t make sense, I am sure there are sub-clause or sub-categories of this – gross misconduct, theft, failure to fulfil job role etc. This needs to be rechecked – I don’t think this policy is so black and white otherwise it would strangel any company, and companies simply would not hire people worried that they would be stuck with a stupid employee for 4 months.

 

Hi Steve,

 

Layoff falls under retrenchment which is another section in the termination. This is applicable to specific situations where we are over staffed for losing a few sudden contract. We can use that when such issues occurs. But I'm order to release an employee without any valid cause, we have to give them 4 months notice or payment on lieu of the notice period.

Hello Ross,
I have go through the document you attached. I am a little confused about termination policy. In the document it said we can terminate any employee with 4 month prior notice. But i remember you said we can layoff any employee with 1 month prior notice or 1 month salary?

Hi Guys,

Please see attached the updated employment contract we drafted after discussing it with the labor inspection office. We have made some changes to comply with the Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006, and Bangladesh Labour Rules, 2015. Some important changes are as follows:

1. Termination (by both the employee and the employer)

2. Salary Increment (we have removed our internal increment policy and have added a 5% yearly increment as per the labour law). We can however customize any individual salary at any time without decreasing it)

3. Public Holidays - we need to add 4 local holidays to the public holiday calendar which is a requirement. The total public holidays will be 14 days per year (no change in the total)

4. Paid leaves - no paid leave will be given during the first year of employment. From the second year, the employee earns 1 paid leave for every 18 working days which equals to around 14 paid leave per which they can either take or convert to cash at the end of the year. 

Please review the attached document and confirm that everything looks okay and we haven't missed anything from our perspective. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. Once we all finalize this we will need to do the following steps to implement this for all current and future employees:

1. Publish a notice stating that we are changing our terms and conditions to comply with the labour law of Bangladesh.

2. The new contract will be signed by the employees by the end of December and it will be effective from 1st January 2024.

OK SURE, I will make a draft employment letter and update you soon. 

I visited the labor office today and received a complaint from one of our existing staff members about Aminur Rahman's (Khukon) misbehavior. The labor officers interrogated me regarding the complaint. Still, I strongly denied it, emphasizing that Staff India does not tolerate such behavior and that all managers interact with their subordinates respectfully.

However, the officers may visit our office to investigate the complaint further and suggest placing a complaint box in the workplace to gather employee feedback.

Note that the previous complaint was dismissed by the labor office, demonstrating our commitment to following Bangladesh's labor laws. 

Thanks, Daniel. I think you should prepare a draft employment contract to reflect these changes, get this checked with them, and then send us the final draft so we all can have a look and finalize this. 

Key takeaways from my meeting with the Labor officer today:

• Layoffs: We can lay off employees, but we must give them at least 1 month's notice or a basic salary of 1 month. For employees who will work less than 1 year, we can give them 15 days' notice or 50% of a basic salary. We must also keep documentation to support our decision to lay off an employee. If we need to hire an employee with the same skills and designation in the future, we must call, email, and mail the laid-off employee to offer them the opportunity to rejoin.
• Annual increments: We must offer employees at least a 5% annual increment.
• Paid leave: Employees who work less than 1 year are not eligible for paid leave. Employees who will work more than 1 year will earn 1 paid leave for every 18 working days. Casual leave and sick leave are unpaid. Female employees are entitled to paid maternity leave for up to 4 months.
• Contractual jobs: There is no legal support or protection for contractual jobs in Bangladesh.
• Short-term contracts: Employees who will work less than 6 months can be released immediately.
• Fire safety: The government strictly monitors fire safety in workplaces. We must have at least 1 fire extinguisher for every 500 square feet of office space

All recruitment and dismissal documents must be kept in both physical and electronic formats. Both the employer and employee must retain physical copies of these documents in case of any future appeals.

Yesterday, I also visited the Labor offices, and I've learned that we must first ensure our company registration, which may cost BDT 1,000 plus 15% VAT. To apply for registration, we will need the proprietor's NID, TIN, and the company's Trade License.

Secondly, we may need to make some changes to our holiday and leave policies, such as adding mandatory public holidays in Bangladesh to our calendar. I will meet with the officer again today to clarify layoff, termination, and other monetary policies.

Note: We will strive to prioritize company benefits first. One of my university friends works there, and he is advising us on the most effective ways to update our contract. However, it is clear that we must make some changes to our policies and procedures now.

See the attached page where an employee can file a complaint. They also have a mobile app for this and one can track the status of their complaint. I see that one has to provide a mobile number in the form. We asked the person about this and he said they tried to reach the number but its unreachable. So most likely a fake number is being used. 

You can see the criteria for complaints an employee can make. One can also file a complaint on the time they receive their salaries. As per the law, the salaries must be paid within 7 working days of the following month. So you see we now have many areas where we can find ourselves in trouble.