We fill in the place of work in the employment contract without consequences

One of the mandatory conditions that must be specified in the employment contract when concluding an agreement to begin cooperation is the indication of the place of work.

This item has nothing to do with the workplace, so when writing it, you should take into account the presence of nuances that affect this item. For organizations whose legal address coincides with their direct workplace, there are no difficulties when filling out this line. But what if the company is a branch or division? How to correctly enter information for remote employees or for those who have a traveling nature of work? The employer must know all this, because the employment contract does not tolerate errors and inaccuracies.

Difference between place of work and workplace

Article 57 of the Labor Code lists all the mandatory and additional conditions that must be specified in the contract concluded between the employer and the new employee. One of the mandatory conditions is to indicate the place of work. At the same time, the same article provides extremely sparse explanations of this point, and there are no explanations at all about what should be understood by this concept. However, based on the wording and further explanatory definitions, one circumstance becomes absolutely clear - this concept has nothing to do with the expression “workplace”.

Article 209 of the Labor Code provides an explanation of the expression “workplace”. It is defined as a certain point where the employee is obliged to regularly arrive to perform his immediate duties. Moreover, this item must be controlled by the employer with whom the cooperation agreement was concluded. In fact, a working space is considered to be the space where an employee works day after day, has his own tools, a table, a chair or other objects that are transferred to him for the duration of his work.

The work place is a less individualized space. It also employs other people who have also entered into contracts with the organization. The place of work always has a postal address.

Position of the Supreme Court

The lack of a unified legal position regarding the term forced the Supreme Court to express its opinion.

The immediate reason that necessitated the need to provide an explanation was labor disputes concerning work in the Far North, or more precisely, the calculation of various territorial coefficients and the receipt of benefits related to the specifics of work.

The Supreme Court indicated that the place of work should be considered a specific organization (branch, department, section, etc.) located in a certain area.

Review of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation

That is, the employment contract should indicate the name of the employer (full and abbreviated), as well as its legal address (locality) or the address of a separate unit if it is located in another locality.

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Designation of the place of work in the contract

The place of work must be specified in the employment contract. When designating it, you must follow some rules.

Article 57 of the Labor Code specifies that:

1. The clause of the agreement specifies the specific place where the newly hired person will work.
2. If the hired person will work in a branch of the organization, a representative office of the company or another structural unit, then this paragraph must contain not only the name of the separate branch, but also its exact location.

Based on the explanations given in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, it should be assumed that the employer must specify the required information in as much detail as possible, providing all available data in writing, up to clarifying the address of the unit.

Please note that the workplace does not have to be specified, although this is not prohibited.

Something as small as a written clarification of the main place of work allows you to protect the rights of the employee.

The employer cannot personally make changes to an already signed contract, which means he does not have the right to send the employee to another geographical location without his consent. This clarification is especially relevant when the organization has a wide, extensive network throughout a city, district, federal district or even a country.

Like the terrain

Large enterprises, factories, factories, fields, and mining sites are at the same time a place of work and at the same time do not have a specific address, due to the extent of their location. In such cases, the address means an indication of the locality in which they are located or near which they are located.

For example, an oil rig specialist works in a specific geographic location referred to as a “bush.” This is his main and permanent place of work, however, it is not located in a city, village or town. The employment agreement does not imply the possibility or necessity of indicating geographical coordinates in the line called “place of work”, therefore the closest locality is taken as the reference. Since the “bush” has a certain length of several kilometers, and maybe even ten kilometers, the movement of an employee in this zone will be legal and will not require separate approvals from him.

The same procedure is followed when indicating a locality in the address line. In this case, an employee can be moved from one building of the organization to another building without his consent, the main thing is that the movements are within the specified city or town.

Employer's legal address

The legal address is a mandatory attribute of the agreement. It is written at the end of the employment contract, when indicating the addresses of the parties. But it can also be indicated in the line where the place of work of the hired employee should be indicated. This should only be done if the legal address coincides with the place where the hired person will directly work, although it may not be registered. Which will also not be considered a violation.

Today, there are disputes over the correct interpretation of the agreed clause of the agreement. The Labor Code does not have clear instructions about which formulations are considered correct and which are unacceptable. One thing is for sure, such disagreements are considered insignificant, but when a conflict situation arises, it is they that cause heated debates and litigation.

Name of employing organization

Should I indicate the name of the employing organization again when describing the place of work? This point is also interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, it undoubtedly makes sense in the indicated line to start with the name of the organization, then indicate the name of the structural unit and complete everything by indicating the exact address. On the other hand, such a tautology is absolutely meaningless, because the legal name was declared at the very beginning of the contract, and the place of work cannot be provided by another legal entity.

Labor legislation allows the employer to decide for himself what to do correctly in this situation.

There is no indication that this is mandatory or that this approach is prohibited. For an organization, it is better to overdo it a little with clarifications than to understate the obvious. For this reason, in order to avoid certain inaccuracies, it is better to make a step-by-step description of the place of work, starting with the name of the employing organization.

Normative base

Like all points relating to the relationship between the employing organization and hired personnel, the indication of place of work in documents is determined by the norms of the Labor Code.

Labor Code of the Russian Federation

The problematic concept is found in sections devoted to:

• registration of an employment contract;
• changing conditions;
• vacations;
• guarantees and compensations;
• labor protection, etc.

And yet, there is no clear definition of what this very place of work is.

Perhaps the only indication is Part 2 of Art. 57 of the Labor Code, which states that if an employee is hired not at the head office, but, for example, at a branch, representative office and other units in another location, then this must be reflected in the contract itself. The same applies to signing an agreement with a remote worker: it is necessary to indicate the place of his work (Article 312.2 of the Labor Code).

As a result, in different articles, the place of work is understood as either the name of the employing company, or its location during the day, or even a position at all.

This position of the legislator does not allow the use of an unambiguous interpretation of the term and introduces confusion into the documentation.

For example:

Let’s try to clarify the question of what a “place of work” is.

To do this, let’s compare it with the term “workplace,” which is similar in sound and meaning. Its definition is in Art. 209 TK. According to it, this is that part of the territory controlled by the employer where the employee must be located.

It makes sense to indicate it in the employment contract only when it is located somewhere outside the employer’s territory.

It turns out that the employee’s place of work in the employment contract is something different from the workplace.

But what exactly? The law does not explain. It only indicates the need to include a condition about this very place of work in the employment contract.

It is logical to assume that the place of work is more likely related to a specific employing organization and position than to a point in space.

This is indicated by the wording of the articles where this concept is used. But even in the science of labor law there is no consensus on what should be considered a place of work.

Place of work in a separate department

When the organization is both the head office and the place of work of the hired employee, it is not necessary to include specifications regarding the location in the clause of the contract. But if the hired person performs his duties in another department, workshop, warehouse or office, then clarification on his location will be required in any case. This is clearly stated in Article 57 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.

Despite the fact that labor legislation requires specifying the structural unit into which the employee is hired and where he will directly perform his work duties, there is no reference in the article to the fact that it is necessary to indicate the address of the building. Only the need to clarify the location is specified.

When registering an employee in one of the structural divisions, it is recommended to follow the following procedure for describing his affiliation:

1. The name of the employer's organization itself.
2. Name of the structural unit.
3. Location.

This information may look like this:

LLC LUKOIL-ENERGOSETI, Astrakhanenergoneft, Astrakhan.

Representative office and branch

When sending an employee to one of the branches of a company or its representative office, it is understood that he will work in the company, but its location is different from the location of the head office. Large companies may have branches and representative offices both on the territory of the Russian Federation and abroad. This case requires mandatory clarification in the contract, as it may cause misunderstanding, and is interpreted as withholding information from the hired person. When signing an agreement, a citizen must clearly understand what obligations he is taking on and where he will fulfill them.

If the representative office is located in another federal district or even outside the country, then its location should be specified as accurately as possible.

It is recommended to present information in the following sequence:

1. Company name.
2. Name of the branch or representative office.
3. Federal district of the Russian Federation or country (if we are talking about another state).
4. City.

A specific address may or may not be provided as desired.

Place of work for certain categories of workers

Understanding the intricacies of correctly indicating the place of work for permanent stationary employees is not so difficult. But what to do if the very nature of the work involves constant movement?

In modern realities, there are many professions that, due to the nature of their activities, are not required to appear in the office, and if they do, they do so infrequently and are in the room for an extremely short time.

Such professions include:

1. Couriers.
2. Drivers.
3. Forwarders.
4. Merchandisers.
5. Remote employees.

They move from one work point to another and spend less than a full day at each of them, or even just a few minutes. How to fill out the column we are interested in in the agreement in this case?

For couriers, drivers

An employer should not be afraid of the incomprehensibility of the question when hiring a courier, driver, forwarder or other employee whose work must take place outside the office walls. In this case, the working agreement should indicate exactly the location of the office itself, as well as the city in which it is located. No conflicts with legislative norms will arise if the conditions for fulfilling labor duties are specified in a separate line in the agreement.

For different professions, the conditions will be set out differently:

1. The agreement with the courier should state that he is expected to have a traveling nature of work.
2. For drivers and forwarders, it is necessary to indicate that their duties will be performed while en route.

The wording may vary, but the main thing is not to forget to make such clarifications in the documents.

For remote workers

Remote employees may not show up in the office. They are given assignments remotely, and work is accepted in the same way. They appear in the office once when they are employed. What should an employer do in this case?

In recent years, this issue has become more acute, as more and more companies prefer to transfer some of their employees to remote work.

Such employment reduces some of the costs of organizing workplaces and technical support for employees, and also allows the employee to vary his day and complete tasks at a time convenient for him.

For several years, there have been lively debates about how to properly employ such employees and what to indicate in the line about the place of work. Today, the answer to these questions has not only been received, but also enshrined in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. Article 312 of the Labor Code states that for remote workers, the place of work is considered to be the location of the office of the company in which he was hired. And where the person himself will be does not matter. At the same time, the agreement must indicate that the hired person works remotely or remotely. This clarification can be made both in a fixed-term contract and in an agreement without a term, for permanent employees or those who work part-time.

FAQ

Is it possible to indicate two places of work?

No, because the place of work is the name of the employer.

But an employment contract can specify two jobs. And it’s even necessary if the employee actually has two of them. It is also advisable to indicate when exactly the employee is required to be at each of them.

At the same time, only the legal address of the employer is specified in the mandatory conditions - that is, the place of its state registration. And in additional conditions it is already possible to clarify the location of workplaces.

Cases of change of place of work

Long-term interaction between the parties may lead to changes in working conditions. The clause on the location of the place of work is also subject to change. Changes are possible if an employee, on his own initiative or at the will of the employer, is transferred to another branch or city within the same company. Do not forget that the agreement itself is a bilateral document that was signed with the goodwill and consent of both members of the labor relationship. Accordingly, all changes to it are also made through bilateral agreement. If the employer intends to transfer the employee to another branch and change the information specified in the agreement, then he is obliged to notify the hired person about this.

When it comes to changing an employer a priori, we are not talking about changes. In this case, the citizen resigns from one organization, severing relations with the previous employer, and enters into new ones. And the new employer specifies all working conditions in the contract, including the place of work.