Regular Employment
What does it mean?
Regular Employment means that all workers are
provided with a legally recognised employment
relationship and that every effort is made to ensure
that employment is continuous.
Workers without employment agreements with their
employer or who are provided only with short-term
contracts often do not receive the wages and
benefits given to permanent, full time workers.
Also, workers in temporary/casual working
arrangements are vulnerable to abuse because
they may not be legally entitled to the same pay,
benefits and rights as other workers.
Providing regular employment means
that the company will not hire
workers on a temporary basis in
order to avoid paying the same
wages and benefits as permanent
workers.
Benefits
Why should you do it?
Respecting your workers’ rights to regular
employment will help you stay within the law, avoid
penalties and meet your customers’ requirements.
Formal employment agreements (contracts) that
spell out the terms and conditions of the work help
workers to understand their situation.
There can also be business benefits, such as:
a) Decreased worker turnover
The purpose of this section is to help you identify
the risks in your current business processes that
could result in hiring workers into temporary or
informal employment, and to help you put in place
controls to ensure regular employment.
b) Improved worker satisfaction, morale and
productivity
c) Enhanced company reputation
d) Decreased costs for recruitment and
hiring
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Requirements
What do you need to do?
Achieving and Maintaining
Standards
ETI Base Code Provision 8
states that regular
employment is provided.
This means:
How do you do it?
You can best meet standards by using a systems
approach. In other words, you add controls to the
processes you already use to run your business (like
discipline and termination.) And you make sure your
policies and procedures are designed to prevent
common problems, such as:
8.1 To every extent
possible, work
performed must be on
the basis of a
recognised employment
relationship established
through national law and practice.
 Absence of
employment
agreements.
8.2 Obligations to employees under labour or social
security laws and regulations arising from the
regular employment relationship shall not be
avoided through the use of labour-only
contracting, sub- contracting, or home-working
arrangements, or through apprenticeship
schemes where there is no real intent to impart
skills or provide regular employment, nor shall
any such obligations be avoided through the
excessive use of fixed-term contracts of
employment.
 Copies of terms
and conditions
not provided to
workers.
 Workers required
to sign blank
papers and
resignation
letters.
 Probation
periods exceed
legal limits.
Relevant ILO Conventions
There are no Conventions that deal solely with Regular
Employment. However, Conventions relevant to the
topic include the following:
C95:
 Company imposes additional contract terms after
contract is signed.
 Agency workers do not receive full legal and social
Protection of Wages Convention, 1949
security benefits.
C158: Termination of Employment Convention,
1982
 Workers fired and rehired to avoid paying
C175: Part-time Work Convention, 1994
 Workers are consistently employed on temporary
permanent worker wages and benefits.
C177: Homework Convention, 1996
contracts.
C181: Private Employment Agencies Convention,
1997
Importantly you should also periodically monitor your
processes and controls to make sure they are working.
Other international standards and guidelines state:

Adequate safeguards should be provided
against recourse to contracts of employment for
a specified period of time, the aim of which is to
avoid the protection resulting from the
Termination of Employment Convention, 1982
(ILO Recommendation R166).
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 Maintaining all records (such as copies of
employment agreements) relating to regular
employment.
Policies
(rules)
The terms and conditions of employment should be
clearly established in writing and understood by the
worker at the time of hire. Your recruitment, selection,
hiring, termination and other human resources
procedures should:
Your company policies should include the following:
 Commitment to provide all workers with formal
employment agreements that clearly state the
terms and conditions of employment.
 Include ways to track and understand laws and
 Statement that the company will not use
regulations on regular employment.
consecutive short term contracts in place of
permanent employment.
 Ensure all workers are provided with an
 Commitment to provide trainees with the wages
employment agreement at the time of hiring that
contains the following information:
and benefits of permanent workers after a fixed
time period.
 Nature and type of worker arrangement (such
as probationary, apprentice/trainee,
regular/permanent, contract worker)
 Statement that temporary workers will be
provided with the same wages, benefits and
other terms and conditions of employment as
permanent workers after six months
employment.
 Terms and duration of the contract under the
specified employment arrangement that meet
local labour law
 Commitment that apprenticeships will be of
 Specific job functions
limited duration and only be used to provide
workers with the practical skills needed for their
course of study or to prepare them for regular
employment.
 Duration of contract
 Regular and overtime work hours and wages
 Benefits
Procedures
 Pay cycle
(practices)
 Resignation and termination conditions
Management should assign a responsible person
(or department) to make sure these policies are
carried out through the following practices:
Best Practice
 Communicating your policies to all managers,
Job performance criteria to
move from trainee to permanent
status, including the maximum
duration of time in trainee
status, are clearly defined in
writing and communicated to all
workers
supervisors and workers.
 Meeting regularly with all managers and
supervisors to ensure that workers’ rights and
benefits related to regular employment are
respected at all times.
 Monitoring and reporting all complaints and
corresponding management actions or responses.
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 The employment agreement or contract is signed
Communication and Training
by the worker and the manager responsible for
hiring workers.
You can use the following methods to make sure your
employees are aware of policies and procedures:
 The contents of the agreement are clearly
explained to the worker before he/she signs the
document.
 Provide training programmes for new managers
and supervisors on the company’s policy and
procedures on terms and conditions of
employment relationships/contracts.
 The agreement is written in a language that
workers understand.
 Workers are provided with their own copy of the
 Require all newly hired workers to attend training
where all policies, including the company’s
policies on regular employment are explained.
agreement.
 Employment agreement for a worker hired in
 Require the staff in charge of hiring to explain the
probationary status contains clear description of
the duration of probation and the performance
requirements to achieve permanent status.
employment agreement to all newly hired workers
(this should be done before workers are asked to
sign the employment agreement).
 Employment agreements for apprentices clearly
 Provide each worker with a copy of an employee
state the terms and conditions of the position, the
maximum length of the apprenticeship and the
relationship to the worker’s course of study.
handbook.
 Display provisions in the company’s policy that
relate to employment relationships in a language
that workers understand.
Best Practice
 Display laws that apply to regular employment (for
Apprentices
example, wages, benefits, social insurance and
legally required deductions) in the language(s)
that the workers understand.

All apprentices receive regular
wages and benefits.

Apprentices are provided with
regular performance reviews and
ongoing training to help them
‘graduate’ to regular employment.

Apprentices have a clear
understanding of when and how they
will become permanent workers.
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Documentation and Records
 Verify that transfers of trainee or apprentice
Meeting standards requires proper documentation.
You will need to keep on file on company premises:
workers within the facility do not violate
company policies for scope, term and duration
of trainee and apprenticeship assignments.
 All employment agreements.
 Review employment agreements/contracts
 Agreements with technical schools, colleges,
regularly and update them as needed to make
sure that contents meet international standards
and local labour law.
labour brokers, or recruitment agencies.
 Current copies of local legal requirements
relating to employment agreements,
apprenticeship programs, and other aspects of
regular employment.
 Establish and monitor key performance
indicators for business processes so that you
can measure their effectiveness on a
continuous basis. For example: ‘number of
workers on trainee status for more than 90 days’
or ‘percentage of new workers who understand
the terms of their employment agreement.’
Best Practice
If workers cannot read, the terms
and conditions of employment
agreements are explained to them
in their native language at the time
of hire.
 Regularly review and revise policies and
procedures to keep them relevant and up-todate.
 All complaints about how the company’s policies
Best Practice
on employment relationships and regular
employment are working should be properly
documented and filed.
Periodically review a random
sample of personnel files for
workers hired in the past month to
verify that all have received
written employment agreements.
Monitoring
You will need to check if your discipline and grievance
policies are being followed and that controls intended
to make sure the company is meeting code and legal
requirements are effective.
Tips:
1. Monitor trends and statistics to identify actual
and potential problems, including:
 Regularly review worker feedback related to
the administration of the company’s regular
employment policies.
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Common Questions
2. Investigate the problem and analyse why it
occurred. Where data indicates the existence
of non-conformities with your company’s regular
employment policies and customer code(s) of
conduct, the company should investigate these
conditions to determine their causes and what
can be done to address them.
Why do companies need to take care when
establishing apprenticeship programs?
Apprenticeship programs are only appropriate to
provide student workers with skills related to their
course of study or to teach workers the skills
needed to advance to permanent employment.
Unfortunately, apprenticeship programs are often
abused. Faced with a shortage of workers or as a
way to avoid paying legally required wages and
benefits for permanent employees, companies create
so-called “apprentice programs.” Instead of learning
technical skills, vocational school students are simply
used as a form of inexpensive labour to perform
routine production tasks and trainees are kept as
apprentices indefinitely instead of advancing to
permanent status.
3. Work with other departments to identify
reasonable solutions. Take care to develop
solutions so that the problem does not recur and
the solution itself does not create other problems.
For example:
 Human Resources should regularly work with
staff directly in charge of each policy to
address problem areas and identify best
practices.
 Production planning and sales need to closely
coordinate with Human Resources to develop
accurate staffing plans in order to minimise
the use of temporary workers.
Monitoring employment relationship
issues for vocational school
apprentices should be handled with
sensitivity as student apprentices tend
to be less vocal because of their poor
bargaining position.
 Analyse on a regular basis issues and
suggestions from worker meetings and use
the results in adjusting company policies and
procedures.
Common SMETA Audit Non-compliances
Written criteria and procedures are required for any
apprenticeship program to ensure they serve a
legitimate purpose and meet legal requirements,
rather than being a way to avoid payment of wages
and benefits.
 Lack of clear, understandable written terms and
conditions of employment
 Missing or incomplete worker contracts
 Lack of employment records kept by
management
 Workers not provided with a written contract of
employment
 Contract misrepresents employment
relationship and entitlements
 No communication to subcontractors of
standards on regular employment
Sex providedes a document with suggested possible corrective
actions following a SMETA audit. This is available to Sedex
members only in the Sedex Members Resources section:
Sedex Corrective Action Guidance
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“The training also helped us start a new system of HR
meetings every 6 months with workers: to review their
performance, to find out how they are doing, to offer
them skill training, to communicate with them about
their employment, health and safety training. The
workers love the new system.”
Isn’t the use of short term contracts an acceptable
way of meeting rapidly fluctuating production
volumes?
No. Consecutive fixed-term contracts typically
prevent workers from receiving the wages, benefits
and other terms of employment afforded permanent
workers. Workers on short-term contracts are also
more vulnerable to termination without cause and
other abuses.
Aman Knitting had good contracts already but the
training has helped give more information and
communicate better employees’ rights, entitlements,
responsibilities, terms and conditions of employment,
disciplinary and grievance procedures to the workers.
The best way to address variations in production
levels is for production to work closely with Human
Resources and other departments to develop
realistic staffing and production plans. Peak
seasons may also be managed without resorting to
fixed term contracting by addressing capacity issues
through better production process design and
automation.
“We have always had a 21 days’ notice period policy
but our workers didn’t follow it. Because the training
has taught us to better communicate, our workers who
wish to leave now follow this procedure.”
“The training has implemented better systems for
workers to take leave and increased the attendance
bonus from 300 to 500 taka per week, which has been
very effective at reducing absenteeism. When we
started we had a worker turnover of 8%, which has
decreased to 3%.”
Case Study
“Invest in Human Resources”
Good Human Resources management is crucial to
providing stable, regular employment which is
important to all businesses. Workers should be
informed of their rights, benefits and conditions of
employment before they are employed and given
appropriate contracts.
The scheme has allowed the business benefits of
providing better and more stable jobs to be shown as
well as demonstrating how the investment in tools and
systems for long-term has benefitted workers through
HR and productivity changes.
Aman Knitting Ltd. part of the Unifill Group, are a
ready-made garment manufacturer based in
Bangladesh. Suppliers include; Tesco, Mothercare
and Sainsbury’s. To find out more about Aman
Knitting, email info@amanknitting.com
Aman Knitting Ltd. has recently piloted the Benefits
for Business and Workers Model which encourages
factories to take part in training and measures
changes at a factory productivity level. Managers
were trained over 2-3 day courses and then rolled
out this training to their workers. The programme has
built management skills and systems in human
resources, production and quality.
Sedex is always looking for new
case studies. If you have a
best practice example case
study that you would like to be
featured then please send it to
alex.thomas@sedexglobal.com
“A problem in Bangladesh is we don’t know how to
improve middle management and lack training. The
programme taught us better ways to recruit people
and how to retain them,” says Saif Bhuiyan,
Operations Director at Aman Knitting.
The training has strengthened their 3-month
probationary period, by matching new workers with
stronger members of staff in a ‘buddy’ system to
support and teach them. It has been so effective
they have rolled this out to existing workers.
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Resources and Guidance
The following organisations, web sites and documents provide additional information on freedom of
association and collective bargaining:
 Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) Best Practice Guidance:
http://www.sedexglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/SMETA-Best-Practice-Guidanceupdated-2011.pdf
 SMETA Corrective Action Guidance: https://www.sedex.org.uk/sedex/go.asp?wsfedsession=0
 International Labour Organization: http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/employmentsecurity/lang--en/index.htm
 ILO Helpdesk – Employment Security: http://www.ilo.org/empent/areas/businesshelpdesk/WCMS_DOC_ENT_HLP_SOE_EN/lang--en/index.htm
 Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI): http://www.eti.org

ETI Base Code: http://www.ethicaltrade.org/resources/key-eti-resources/eti-base-code
 UN Global Compact “The Labour Principles - A Guide for Business:”
http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/labour/the_labour_principles_a_guide_for_
business.pdf
 United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Article 23):
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 7):
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm
Signposts to Training

ILO: http://www.itcilo.org/en/training-offer
Key Terms

Apprenticeship: A program that allows students of vocational schools and other
educational institutions to gain practical work experience in their course of study.
A way for young workers to be paid while learning a specific technical skill or trade.

Employment Agreement/Contract: A legal document between a worker and
employer that defines the terms, conditions and duration of the job.

Probation: An introductory period of employment that allows the company and
the worker determine if the worker is suited for the job.

Short Term Contract: An employment agreement that is valid for a short period
of time, typically less than the amount of time in which a worker would legally
be considered a permanent worker. Consecutive short term contracts are
used to avoid paying the wages and benefits due permanent workers.
The information contained in this document is provided by Verité and while every effort has been made to make the
information complete and accurate and up to date, Sedex makes no representations or warranties of any kind,
express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the
information contained therein. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk. In no
event is Sedex liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or
any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this
document.
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