Hello everybody. First time I have created a discussion but I just need some help at work and hope you can help!
We currently have a situation where we have amended a sales team (2 people) commission structure because it had been deemed a business need to reduce the commission due to their massive under performance in the last year.
10% commission of all that the employee brings into the business is written into their contracts so we needed to make an adjustment to their contract.
We had the initial meeting end November to advise them of the change and more than 30 days notice was given to them before the change kicked in on January 1st. It was also put in writing on the same day to them.
In the meeting, no objection to the change was made and no objection was made to the letter until this week (Jan 14th), 14 days into the new commission structure.
Each employees contract also has written in that changes can be made to the contract with 30 days written notice. No basic salary changes have been made.
We thought, because no objection was made within the 30 days and in the initial meeting, we were all ok but now an employee has stated that a solicitor has advised this is breach of contract because commission is not a 'reasonable change'.
We have all meeting notes, copies of communication and series of events but unsure where we stand. We have been given advice that we seem to have done everything correctly, but obviously, we have a solicitor saying otherwise.
Does anybody have any advice on this matter and if we have done things wrong, then fair enough, we can fix that but how do we make a change to a contract in the future?
Thanks in advance!!
Replies