Hiring in without a valid basis
The right to hire in from a staffing agency is narrow. Without a lawful basis, the arrangement can be treated as unlawful and give rise to a claim for permanent employment.
Is the hire-in lawful - and is the consultant really a contractor?
Check the basis for hiring in, equal treatment and the line between a contract for services and employment under Norwegian law, before an inspection or a back claim makes the assessment for you.
Does this sound familiar?
The consultant works as an employee
Direction, working hours, equipment and duration can in practice turn a "contractor" into an employee, with the rights that follow.
Equal treatment is not documented
Hired-in personnel must have pay and working conditions at least on a par with comparable employees of the hirer. The missing documentation is the risk itself.
A realistic example
This is a constructed example that shows the format. It is not an assessment of an actual case.
«We have hired in a developer from a staffing agency for 14 months to cover steady capacity. Is the arrangement lawful, and can she claim permanent employment with us?»
Extract from the sample analysis
Preliminary assessment: steady, lasting capacity is normally not a lawful basis for hiring in - the right applies mainly to genuine temporary cover and time-limited needs. If the hire-in is unlawful, a court may hold that permanent employment with the hirer exists. Before any conclusion it must be established what the arrangement was actually to cover, whether there is an agreement with the employee representatives, and how the equal treatment requirement is documented.
Kilde: Norwegian Working Environment Act sections 14-12 and 14-12 aDokumentene consulting and staffing laster opp
And what the analysis extracts from each of them.
Hire-in agreement with the staffing agency
Duration of the assignment, what the hire-in is to cover, pricing format and responsibility for employer duties.
Consultancy agreement
Right of direction, working hours, equipment, place of work, exclusivity and termination - the points that decide whether this is a contract for services or employment.
Equal treatment documentation
The comparison basis for pay and conditions at the hirer, and whether it exists in writing.
Agreement with employee representatives
Whether a local agreement exists, what it covers and when it was entered into.
Framework agreement with the end client
Requirements passed on to the consultant: liability, insurance, intellectual property, confidentiality.
The checks that trigger most often here
Vi oppgir ikke hvor ofte hver enkelt feil forekommer — vi har ikke grunnlag for slike tall. Dette er kontrollene analysen faktisk kjører på dokumentene over.
Contract for services or employment?
The agreement is read against the actual arrangement it describes: direction, working hours, equipment, duration and who carries the risk for the result.
Does the hire-in have a basis that holds?
The analysis separates what the agreement says the hire-in is to cover from what it covers in practice.
Can equal treatment be documented?
If the comparison basis is missing, that is the finding itself - not a detail to be left for later.
What is passed on to the client
Rights to the work product, confidentiality and liability are traced from the framework agreement to the consultancy agreement, and gaps between them are shown.
One clause, reviewed
Utdraget under er konstruert for å vise formatet. Det er ikke hentet fra en kundes dokument.
Consultancy agreement, clause on how the work is performed
"The consultant performs the assignment from the client's premises during the client's ordinary working hours, on the client's equipment, and reports to the client's project manager. The agreement runs until terminated on one month's notice."
Dette flagges
- Four hallmarks of employment sit in the same sentence: place, time, equipment and direction.
- A running agreement with no end date, termination instead of delivery.
- No description of a defined result the consultant answers for.
- No equal treatment documentation, even though hiring in from a staffing agency is mentioned.
The analysis does not conclude that the consultant is an employee. It shows that the wording points that way on four points, which facts decide the question, and which formulations would move the assessment.
- 3
- questions kept apart: basis, status, claim
- §
- reference to section and subsection
- Stated
- which facts are missing
Test the question in a live analysis
The sample question is filled in automatically. You can change the facts before the analysis starts.