What to put in an Employment Contract?

If there is a part of a job that you may or may not want the employee to do, depending on skill and order volume, should you put it in the contract?

I would be careful how specific you make the contract, as if you want to then change the duties, you would have to do a contract amendment. A contract and handbook should generally lay out the general terms of employment, and usually the only employee specific bits would be name, start date, salary and any benefits they would be entitled to.

Why not issue a job specification along with the contract? In this you could be very specific on duties, and making amendments to this would not be too difficult.

Alternatively, maybe it could be issued as a separate document, possibly a contract addendum to be reviewed periodically. This is how we used to cover workers under 18 in my last job, as the hours under 18s work is very specific. An addendum was issued reducing the working hours slightly to be signed and agreed by both the company and the employee and agreeing that the employee would not be permitted to and would not work any overtime until they reached the age of 18.

bloody right. cover your self.employees have so many rights.
its really hard to sack a usless tosser today

put everything you expect an enployee to do into a contract so they are aware of what is expected of them- if they then breach any aspect of it you can take disciplinary action.

There are several things you should have in your employment contract.

Term, how long the contract is in effect
Scope of the work expected from the employee
What the employer will provide
Provision (if any) for work done outside the the original "Scope"
Payment Terms, rate and frequency
Contract termination provision, for both employer and employee.

There are other things you may want to add to clarify your expectations about the position but this is the core of a good Employment contract.

The best thing to do is to put an open ended term into the contract at the end of the general terms listedin the contract - something like ' ...any other duties which the employer, from time to time, deems necessary'. This is common practice for most companies and avoids awkward employees who work to what is said in the contract only putting a spanner in the works.

KJ is correct - draw up a JD which should be reviewed annually. The contract should just refer to the JD - that way you wont need to change the contract every time the JD alters. www.acas.gov.uk has a list of things which have, by law, to be included in a contract.