Joshua Smith

Legal obligations report for Aardman case study

Contractual

Types of contracts

There are many types of contracts that an employee might be tied to. The list of contracts is: Full-
time and part-time contracts; fixed-term contracts; agency staff; freelancers, consultants,
contractors; zero hour contracts; and employing family, young people and volunteers. In a full-time
and part-time contract, the employer must give the employee the following: a written statement of
employment or contract, the statutory minimum level of paid holiday, a payslip showing all
deductions, eg National Insurance Contributions (NICs), the statutory minimum length of rest breaks,
statutory sick pay (SSP) and maternity, paternity and adoption pay and leave. They must also make
sure the employees don’t work longer than the maximum hours, pay at least the minimum wage,
provide a safe working area, employers liability insurance, register with HM Revenue and Customs to
deal with payroll, tax and NICs, consider working requests, avoid discrimination, make reasonable
adjustments to business buildings and equipment to meet the need of a disabled employee. A fixed-
term contract is a contract that last for a certain length of time, they are set in advance and can end
when a task is completed or when an event takes place. They receive the same treatment as
full/part-time employees.

An employer can hire you temporary through agencies. This means the employers pays the agency,
including the insurance contributions and sick pay. It’s the agency’s responsibility to make sure the
workers get their rights. Agency staff can get the same terms and conditions as full-time workers
after they have worked 12 weeks. The employer provides the agency with information about the
relevant terms and conditions so they get the equal treatment after 12 weeks of working there. The
employer must allow the agency workers to use any facilities that are shared, and the employer is
still responsible for the workers’ health and safety.

When an employer hires a freelancer, consultant or a contractor they understand the worker is self-
employed or are part of other companies. These kinds of people would look after their own tax and
national insurance contributions and might not be entitled to the same rights as a full-time worker.
The employer is still responsible for their health and safety. A zero-hour contract is also known as a
casual contract by many. People who have these contracts will go to work when they are called to
and do pieces of work. A zero-hour contract means you go to work when you are called to, you don’t
have to give the employee any work and they don’t have to work even if you asked them to. Zero
hour workers have rights to annual leave and the national minimum wage, same as regular works.
There is nothing to stop the employee to find work somewhere else and they can ignore a clause in
their contract if it bans them looking for work and accepting work from another employer.

For employing family, avoid special treatment in pay, promotion and working conditions, make sure
tax and NIC are still being paid. Make sure the employer follows working and time regulations for
younger family members and have liability insurance that covers any young family members for
employers and check if you need to provide them with a workplace pension. For volunteers, the
employer is responsible for their health and safety and must give inductions and training in the tasks
they’re going to do. For young people, you can employ them if they are over the age of 13 but rules
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that should be followed for how long they can work for and what jobs they can do. Once someone is
18 they’re classed as an adult worker and the rules would change.

Risk Management

Risk management is the action of identifying and prioritizing risks in the work place. In response to
finding a risk, the correct changes much be made to made the workplace safe or to at least

reduce the risk to a minimum. No matter the size of the workplace, risk management is important
for keeping the employee’s safe because in contracts, employers will be responsible for employee’s
health and safety. An overlooked potential risk can result in accidents, with damaged
products/equipment or employees getting injured, leading to lawsuits against you.

Non-disclosure agreements (NDA)

NDAs can be either one way or mutual. A mutual NDA is when both sides have information to keep
quiet about and one way is so one person doesn’t share information about another person. If you
have an NDA enforced on you it means you should not be saying anything to anyone who can’t hear.
An NDA is a legal contract to keep you from saying private information. Aardman don’t have many
people visit the studio so they can keep their projects a secret, anyone who does visit and sees what
they are working on probably will have to sign a NDA. These agreements are signed at the beginning
of a business relationship as the information NDA covers is unlimited and leaking the information is a
breach of the contract. You will commonly find these contracts in technology companies when
companies are joint in products or with people coming to see the product early.

Time management

Time management is not very difficult to do when you think about it, but can be quite difficult for
some. Time management is about prioritising your time so you get the most important things done
first then have time to do other things. Overtime you’ll notice you get more time to do things you
like. Time management is something an employer is always happy to see the interviewee is skilled in.
Time management has a few important parts: being able to plan effectively; setting deadlines;
Setting goals and objectives; and spending the correct amount of time on each task. Effective
planning is planning your day well in advance, this could be doing a job list at the beginning of the
day or even the week. Make sure the important activities in the list is at the top and then followed by
less important tasks. Before starting fresh jobs, make sure you finish already existing jobs so you
don’t have a big queue of jobs to do.

Setting goals and objectives for the day, setting targets that are realistic and achievable. Setting goals
helps people from getting from A to B because they have aim to achieve by the end of a set period.
Setting deadlines ensures that you get the job done by the end of the time you have set for a task.
Aardman would set targets and deadlines all the time so they can get their films created and
published in time. To set deadlines, you should think how long it would take to complete the task,
putting in consideration all things you should do in the task and any other limitations that could slow
down the process.

Prioritizing task is an important part of time management. It separates the importance and urgency
of tasks compared to other tasks that might not be as important. The tasks should as well as
importance be sorted into how long a task would take. The more important tasks that take the
longest will be done before any other tasks but also balance any important short tasks because you
don’t want to spend a week with a few small tasks in queue behind so make sure important simple
tasks are done first or even at the same time. Spending the right amount of time on the correct tasks
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is important to get jobs done effectively. It’s important you don’t waste time on a ask you could be
doing something else while keeping sometime for yourself

Regulatory

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)

The ASA listen to the people of United Kingdom for any

complaints people may have to say about and advert. They
make sure they all follow the rules seeing if that any of the
advertisements are misleading, harmful, offensive or
irresponsible. If I am to advertise the product or use the
product as a piece of advertising I will have to make sure it
follows the rules so I will not get any complaints from the
public.

Trading standards

A trading standards service within local authorities are responsible for a wide range of laws
governing products and services and that we buy as customers. Their main task is to enforce fair
trading. The offices give advice to businesses, investigate complaints, undertake inspections and test
and sample products and services. Within each council there are trading standards staff who,
between them, deal with thousands of complaints and enquires every year and contact many
businesses across the company to help them comply with consumer protection legislation. By
implementing national policy to support fair and competitive markets, honest enterprise and good
business, trading standards services are fundamental to: economic recovery; improving health:
environmental protection; and community safety.

Freedom of information

The freedom of Information Act 2000 provides public access to information held by public
authorities. IT does it in 2 ways, public authorities are obliged to publish certain information about
their activities; and members of the public are entitled to request information from public
authorities. The act covers any information that is held by a public authority in England, Wales,
Northern Ireland and based in Scotland. Scotland has its own freedom of information covered by its
own public authorities. A public authority can be government departments, local authorities, the
NHS, state schools and police forces. The Act does not cover every organisation that receives money
from the public like some charities for example. Recorded information include printed documents,
computer files, letters, emails, photographs and sound or video recordings.

Trademarks

A trademark is a sign, design or expression that is to recognise a product or service. A trademark

would be registered for each specific product a service produces, in Europe, trademarks must be
registered to have protections. A trademark has a few dos and don’ts. They shouldn’t be descriptive
and involve common surnames and should not imply royal patronage. To maintain protection for the
service/product, the trademark must be used in commerce, have fees paid as required to keep it,
mustn’t be generic and must be identified as a trademark by and in some countries.
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Health and Safety policy

A health and safety policy is a document describing the policy of the company about health and
safety in the workplace. The policy would be signed by the CEO and would state that health and
safety is very important in the workplace and maintain the company with its employees. Without a
Health and Safety policy, there would be word to mouth going around the company thoughts that
the CEO does not care about those things. Without policy, middle management in a company can
lack direction as the policy is a statement that sets the expectations of a top management in a
company. Without the policy, middle management would not be able to take appropriate actions for
Health and Safety procedures and conditions for employees. Depending on the country, you may not
be obligated to have a health and safety policy. A company like the US, there is no legal obligation for
a company to have a Health and Safety policy and for the safety of the workplace and employees.

Employment equality (age) regulations 2006

On 1st October 2006, the Employment equality (age) regulations came into force. It applies to all
employees, prospective employees and trainees. Direct discrimination occurs where the employer
treats a job applicant/employee/trainee less favourably than others are treated because of a person’s
age. Indirect discrimination occurs where the employer applies a provision which puts a
disadvantage to an age group. The law prevents employers from treating their less favourable than
others on the grounds of age. In 2010, the law was taken over by the Equality act 2010.

Professional Bodies
British Interactive Multimedia Association (BIMA)

BIMA supports and represents the Britain’s digital world. They work
to progress more schools, colleges and universities to expand on the
digital equipment available. BIMA is a community of people who
share their knowledge to connect with more people in the UK in or
out of the digital world.

Professional body codes of practice

OFCOM protects people in the UK so they get the best out of the
communication services available in the UK. The organisation works
mainly under the communications act 2003 but also under many
other parliament acts. OFCOM ensures the citizens of the UK has a
wide range of communications.

Ethical
Representation of religion

Sometimes, an employee’s religious beliefs or practices can conflict with job

requirements. Employers cannot ignore the religious needs of employees but
must work with employees to try to accommodate them. An employer may have
a dress code policy that prohibits visible tattoos at work. If an employee has a
visible tattoo that appears to be religious insignia, it would be appropriate to ask
the employee whether he or she is permitted to cover the tattoo at work. Some
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employer may need to make exceptions to the policy set to the company.
Another part is being able to prayer. If they can, they should find a suitable place
for place to prayer.

Policies and procedures

Policies in the work place are great and important for a good business. They help employees know
what is expected of them with respect to standards and performance. They set guidelines and
decision-making routine situations. They help you adopt a consistent and clear response across the
company. They allow you to demonstrate good faith that employees will be treated fairly and equally.
They allow you to have an accepted method of dealing with complaints. They set a framework for
delegation of decision-making. They offer you protection from breaches of employment.

Cultural issues and languages

Cultural and language differences can hinder effective communication, stopping team work in a work
place. Workers who are fluent in the primary language used in the workplace may have difficulty
expressing what they need from colleagues. If the job required a lot of customer contact then the
person might find some difficulty because they might have a heavy accent or may become frustrated
when someone doesn’t understand them. Many companies want more diversity in their workforce
by focusing on recruiting and hiring workers of different cultural backgrounds and nationalities.
Introducing new languages and cultures can also add some barriers as well as some benefits.

Ethical requirements

Ethics guide how someone should behave, how they control their lives and themselves in a
workplace. Many human resource professionals understand the importance of hiring people of
integrity. To ensure long-term success, an honest, hard-working employee can help increase the
businesses reputation. All companies specify what is good behaviour and what is not. A key
component of workplace ethics and behaviour is integrity, or being honest and doing the right thing
at all times. For example, health care employees who work with mentally or physically challenged
patients must possess a high degree of integrity, as those who manage and work primarily with
money.