These "Question of the Month" articles (written by CA Plus), are kindly reprinted from previous editions of Hostels Liaison Group's newsletter - HOMING-IN, where regular articles written by our Employment Service Manager are included.

Q & A - first printed in HOMING-IN July 2008

"Casual Employment"

Question: From time-to-time, depending on how busy we are or if other staff members are sick or on holiday, we need to employ extra people on a short term basis. Can we do this and if so, do we have to advertise those posts?

Answer: Yes you can employ extra staff on a short term basis, which most likely in this situation would be classed as casual employment. Casual employment is loosely defined by the nature of the working relationship you have with the worker. If it is a series of unconnected short term work periods where there is no “mutuality of obligation” (i.e. you are under no obligation to offer them any work and the worker is under no obligation to accept any work), then it will fall into this area which is called casual employment. The advantage with casual employment is that it has the effect that certain rights and obligations that would apply to a normal employee do not apply in this case.

With casual employment, length of service only lasts for the duration of each specific work period, as a result the casual worker is never employed longer than one year. As a result they do not have protection against unfair dismissal which means the employer does not have to have or give any reason to end the employment relationship. Plus if the period of casual work has not lasted longer than 4 weeks (unlikely in casual employment) the employer does not have to give any notice. As the casual employment is simply a secession of short term work periods that have no continuity, the worker never becomes eligible for employment rights such as maternity or redundancy.

With regards advertising this post, good practice would be yes, advertise that you are looking for potential workers who would be available to carry out casual work. Successful applicants could then be selected to go on a list, thus when casual work became available, the employer could simply phone people on the lists and they can start immediately.