The Accounting Guide for Entrepreneurs and Employees

For casual employment to exist, the position occupied by the employee should not be usually necessary or desirable in the usual trade or business of the employer.

What is “usually necessary and desirable?” It is a position without which an employer cannot pursue his operation or business.

For instance, in a software development company that sells applications and development services, a computer programmer position is usually necessary and desirable. Without the programmer, the company cannot come up with the product to sell to the market.

But in an insurance firm, computer programmer may not be necessary since the company can still sell insurance products without the programmer. Hence, the programmer in this case may be hired on project employment basis only.

Now, in crafting the contract for casual employment, the employer should bear in mind the following:

• The employment shall not be usually necessary and desirable in the usual trade or business of the employer
• The employment is limited in scope with respect to the activity in which he is employed
• The employment shall not exceed one year. If it does, the employee is considered regular with respect to such activity.
• The contract shall clearly indicate the date of termination or termination upon completion of activity
• Compensation and benefits
• Data privacy consent clause
• Duties and responsibilities
• Place of posting and transfer

The sample template is editable in Word 365 in 8.5’ x 13’.

There are other helpful contract templates available that can assist employers in running their human resource matters such as the following:

• Contract for Probationary for Daily Paid Employee in English – View sample contract here
• Contract for Probationary for Monthly Paid Employee in English
• Contract for Project Employment  English Version  – View sample contract here
• Employment Contracts Package (English and Filipino) – View sample contracts here
• Contract for Casual Employment in English
• Contract for Casual Employment in Filipino
• Contract for Probationary Employment for Daily Paid Employee in Filipino
• Contract for Probationary Employment for Monthly Paid Employee in Filipino
• Contract for Part-Time Employment in English
• Contract for Part-Time Employment in Filipino
• Contract for Seasonal Employment in English
• Contract for Seasonal Employment in Filipino
• Contract for Regular Employment Daily Paid in Filipino
• Contract for Fixed-Term Employment in English
• Contract for Fixed-Term Employment in Filipino

Thus, when dealing with probationary employees, the company should have:

1. Reasonable standards
2. Made known such standards at the time of engagement
3. Performance measures
4. Periodic evaluation
5. Clear rating plan, form, and template

With the right tools, the life of the employer would be bearable and the risk minimized to manageable level.

It is indeed a nerve-wracking exercise to devise the reasonable standards from scratch. However, this is made easy by the new products of LVS Rich Publishing known as the Probationary Employment Evaluation Packet Super 5.

This new soft copy product provides the proposed standards required for probationary to perform to qualify as regular employee. There are metrics with ratings and weights. There is a sample evaluation form where the employee rates himself and his superior then an average of the two ratings is obtained.

The rating system covers Performance, Punctuality/Attendance, Behavior, Teamwork, and Initiative. The total weight is 100%. If the probationary receives an average weight below 75% in one month, it shall be deemed as failure to meet the standards which may be ground for dismissal based on failure to qualify. Of course the buyer of this product can change the weight and rates according to what is considered applicable and necessary.

Performance metrics representing 30% of the total weight is based on Business Knowledge, Output/Production, Resourcefulness, and Teamwork.
Punctuality/attendance is one of the tricky areas to measure. The template though considers this as already 100% of its weight. It is given 20% weight subject to deduction of 3% for every instance of tardiness and 4% for every instance of unauthorized absence.

Behavior is another matter of the same level of difficulty. To rate this, it is already pegged at 20% subject to deduction for every citation or violation of company rules, such as:

• Written warning – less 2%
• Stern warning – less 5%
• Written reprimand – less 6%
• 1-day Suspension – less 7%
• Longer suspension – less 10%

As to Performance metrics, sample rating spread can be seen in the Performance Review Template Excel File under the “Performance Weights” Sheet.

The rating system provides the following:

Outstanding Performance (OP) – Highest performance rating Reserved for individuals who continually achieve outstanding results and utilize their abilities in making contributions beyond their primary areas of responsibility.
Commendable Performance (CP) – Performance is above the expected level for the position making contributions beyond expectations in completion of assignments.
Effective Performance (EP) – Performance consistently meets supervisory expectations of the position requirements in making a valuable contribution to the overall objectives of the Group.
Marginal Performance (MP) – Performance does not consistently meet normal expectations and position requirements, improvement is required.
Unacceptable Performance (UP) – Performance fails to meet normal expectations and position requirements. Termination should be considered unless improvement is demonstrated in a short period of time.

The buyer can Print Sheet 1 of the Performance Review Template Excel File entitled “Proby Metrics” Sheet as form in Performance Review where ratings shall be filled in. This will be used to tally the evaluation results based on performance metrics.

The Evaluation Packet comes with the Evaluation Guidelines file in Word document that will guide the user on how the evaluate the probationary employee using this product.

To further make this exercise easy, a sample evaluation of probationary employee is provided just to give the user a complete picture of how it will be done.

Upon purchase, the following files will be sent to the buyer’s email account from LVS’ Gmail Account:

1. Contract of Probationary Employment for Daily Paid Employee (in Word document file)
2. Description of the Contract of Probationary Employment for Daily Paid Employee (in Word document file)
3. Evaluation Guidelines – Template (in Word document file)
4. Performance Review Template (in Excel File)
5. Sample Probationary Evaluation Template (in Word document file)