Negotiating a contract

Hi,

Have been offered a job a contract with a new employer. Working in financial services sector and at a mid-senior level.

The new job is in a more specialised boutique style company than my current employer. Salary and bonus is better but after reading through the contract, there are a couple of items that bother me.

Namely, holidays are only 20 days a year (previous 25), no pension contribution (previous 6%) and must give 3 months notice (previous 1 month).

Whereas these items may not be deal-breakers, they are enough to make me wonder if I can negotiate these terms.

So I would like to ask if people have had any experience in dealing with negotiating a contract. How receptive might a prospective employer be to negotiating a contract.

I would like to get holidays up to at least 23 days and reduce notice period to 2 months. pension not so worried about.

Any opinions appreciated.

as far as i know, if you are on a salary (i.e) paid monthly, you only need to give one months notice - there are minimum notice requirements depdnding on length of service that yo need to give - SFA of IBEC should be able to help you. annual holidays is 20 days.... extra days are descretion of the company

Is the new salary definitely better than your existing one plus 6% employer pension contribution?

If it says three months notice, does that not mean that your employer has to give you three months notice as well, in the case of redundancy etc?

Those clauses are sometimes waived anyway.

20 days holiday is statutory, that might be all they offer - maybe they will give 21 after a year, 22 after 2 years.

Holidays are generally negotiable. They just offer the statutory but should be open to flexibility. In my job we are all on different holidays entitlements. I was the dumb one who just accepted the holidays even though they were a few days less than in my other job. Everyone else negotiated and are on 3 to 5 days more than me. When I raised it afterwards it was too late. My boss even fought for more days for me in line with my colleagues, but HR were not for turning. A lesson learned!

ClubMan said:

Is the new salary definitely better than your existing one plus 6% employer pension contribution?

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Yes, some 20% better.

dontaskme said:

If it says three months notice, does that not mean that your employer has to give you three months notice as well, in the case of redundancy etc?

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No, they only have to give 1 months notice.

dontaskme said:

Those clauses are sometimes waived anyway.

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I would hope this would be the case. It does say that 3 months notice "...or such lessor period as the company at its discretion may grant"

Trafford said:

Holidays are generally negotiable. They just offer the statutory but should be open to flexibility. In my job we are all on different holidays entitlements. I was the dumb one who just accepted the holidays even though they were a few days less than in my other job. Everyone else negotiated and are on 3 to 5 days more than me. When I raised it afterwards it was too late. My boss even fought for more days for me in line with my colleagues, but HR were not for turning. A lesson learned!

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Thanks for this Trafford. I believe I will request greater holiday entitlements. No harm in asking I suppose.