Business Media Roundup

Last month a survey by Which magazine claimed that 26% of workers failed to read their employment contracts  in any detail and 6% do not read them at all.

Put it another way: 94% of UK employees do read their employment contracts. Now I’d say that’s pretty good especially considering the UK’s illiteracy, or  functional illiteracy rates.

No less a person than former CBI director general and media business star Digby Jones claimed recently that 20% of the adult population is functionally illiterate and a third cannot add up two three-figure numbers.

He calls it “Britain’s dirty little secret”. And there was I thinking it was Ashley Cole.

Functional illiteracy – what’s that? Basically it’s not having the reading skills to cope with everyday life situations – an inability to read a bus timetable will be about par for most definitions.  Certainly the ability to read an employment contract and understand what it means will be beyond the ability of more than the 20% of UK adults whom Digby Jones says are functionally illiterate.

Reports claim that 100,000 youngsters leave school every year functionally illiterate.

So, it’s all very well Which banging on about this issue but the nettle that employers should grasp is how to make employment contracts short and simple and written in plain English.

This may be difficult in this time of complex employment law and rising litigation but surely it cannot be impossible. Employment contracts for those working in jobs most likely to be taken by functional illiterates – dolly birds reading TV auto cues springs to mind – should be no longer than one page. The main elements – pay, hours and holidays – should be bullet-pointed.

Instead we seem to be heading in the opposite direction with contracts becoming ever longer and more complex. I blame employment lawyers for this. Well why not? They make a killing out of such practice.

A case in point is that of my 16-year old son who labours heroically to deliver free newspapers to some of the worthy citizens of a nook of South West London.

This takes about three hours a week.  In order to do this he had to sign a 10-page contract which stipulated a myriad of terms and conditions. I’m proud to say he described it as “bollox” and continued on his merry way.

I say to employers of Britain: keep it simple.