Appointment Letter

An appointment letter looks administrative and functions as evidence. When a dispute arises about pay, notice, place of work, duties or the basis of separation, this is the document both sides produce.

That gives it two properties worth designing around. What it states is difficult for either party to walk away from later, and what it omits gets filled in from elsewhere, usually from statute or from what the parties actually did.

So the drafting question is not what sounds appropriate, but what the organisation is prepared to be held to. A letter that promises a review, a progression, an amount or a location is making commitments that will be read back in exactly the circumstances where the employer would rather they had not been made.

The corresponding discipline is to state what is genuinely fixed and to describe what is genuinely variable as variable, rather than to leave the reader to infer which is which.

The content divides into terms that must be certain and terms that should be described but not fixed.

The remuneration row causes the most trouble. Where a letter quotes one annual figure that includes variable and discretionary elements, the employee reasonably treats the whole of it as what they were promised, and the first year is when the difference is discovered. Naming the fixed component separately costs nothing and prevents that.

Attaching policies by reference rather than reproducing them is usually right, since reproduced policies date and then contradict the current version.

Where someone is engaged for a fixed period, the label carries a statutory meaning and cannot be used loosely.

Section 2(o) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 defines fixed term employment as engagement on a written contract for a fixed period, subject to conditions: the hours of work, wages, allowances and other benefits must not be less than those of a permanent worker doing the same work.

Two consequences follow. The engagement must actually be on a written contract, so a fixed-term arrangement created by conversation is not one. And it cannot be used to engage someone on inferior terms for the same work, which is the use the label is most often reached for.

An arrangement that calls itself fixed term while paying less than a permanent worker doing the same work does not satisfy the definition, and the employer is left having documented the intention without securing the effect.

Where the intention is genuinely a defined period, the letter should say what happens at the end of it, whether renewal is contemplated, and on what basis. A fixed-term letter silent on expiry produces an argument about whether the engagement simply continued.

Terms omitted from the letter are not therefore absent from the relationship.

Statutory entitlements apply irrespective of the document. Where an establishment is covered by standing orders, those govern conditions of service directly, and under section 28 of the Industrial Relations Code the standing orders chapter applies to an industrial establishment in which three hundred or more workers are employed, or were on any day of the preceding twelve months. Where they apply, they are the operative terms for the matters they cover, and a letter that conflicts with them does not displace them.

Practice fills the rest. An employer that has consistently allowed something, paid something, or permitted something creates expectations that a silent letter does nothing to limit.

The useful discipline is to think about the terms most likely to be disputed and ensure the letter addresses them, rather than to produce a long document covering the uncontroversial. Notice, place of work, hours, the fixed portion of pay and the basis of confirmation account for most disputes.

A grievance route is worth naming as well. Under section 4 of the Industrial Relations Code, an industrial establishment employing twenty or more workers is required to have one or more Grievance Redressal Committees, with equal representation of employer and workers.

The mechanics around the letter matter nearly as much as its content.

• Issue it before the person starts, and get it signed before they start. A letter issued in the second week records terms that were not agreed in advance, which weakens it.
• Keep the signed copy with the employee record rather than in a separate file, because the version that matters is the one that can be produced.
• Record variations in writing as they happen. A role, location or pay change agreed verbally and never documented is the most common source of later disagreement about what the terms actually are.
• Check that what the letter says matches what payroll is configured to pay. A mismatch between the letter and the payslip is always resolved in favour of the letter, at cost.
• Do not reuse a template across categories without reading it. Templates written for permanent staff and applied to fixed-term or field roles carry terms that do not fit.

The fourth of these is worth a periodic check. Organisations that have grown quickly frequently find that offer letters, appointment letters and payroll disagree about the structure of pay, and the discovery usually happens during a settlement.