Three tiers, not one list
Search for “HR policies every South African business needs” and you get flat lists — seven items, or twenty-seven, with no section numbers and no size triggers. They are opinion dressed as law, and they make it impossible to tell what actually happens if you skip something. The honest answer sorts into three tiers.
Required by law. A statute or regulation says “must” or “shall”, and the failure carries a compliance order, a fine or a criminal offence. There is no discretion and no size exemption unless the Act itself gives one.
Effectively required. No statute prescribes the document, but a Code of Good Practice or a judgment makes it the only practical way to defend a claim. You can operate without it — right up to the moment someone refers a dispute, at which point its absence is the case against you.
Recommended. The underlying rule is often mandatory; the document is simply how you show that you meet it. A leave policy is the clearest example: the Basic Conditions of Employment Act sets the floor whether or not you write anything down.
The minimum policies tool applies these tiers to your headcount, payroll, sector and the kinds of people you engage, and prints the register.
Figures last reviewed 9 September 2026.
From the first employee
Far more applies on day one than most owners expect — including a household that employs one domestic worker for 24 hours a month or more.
Written particulars of employment
The obligation is not to have “a contract” but to hand over specified particulars in writing when the employee starts. Sixteen items are listed, and they must be revised whenever any of them changes, explained if the employee cannot understand them, and kept for three years after the employment ends.
An employer must supply an employee, when the employee commences employment, with the following particulars in writing— (a) the full name and address of the employer; (b) the name and occupation of the employee, or a brief description of the work for which the employee is employed; (c) the place of work, and, where the employee is required or permitted to work at various places, an indication of this; (d) the date on which the employment began; (e) the employee’s ordinary hours of work and days of work; (f) the employee’s wage or the rate and method of calculating wages; (g) the rate of pay for overtime work; (h) any other cash payments that the employee is entitled to; (i) any payment in kind that the employee is entitled to and the value of the payment in kind; (j) how frequently remuneration will be paid; (k) any deductions to be made from the employee’s remuneration; (l) the leave to which the employee is entitled; (m) the period of notice required to terminate employment, or if employment is for a specified period, the date when employment is to terminate; (n) a description of any council or sectoral determination which covers the employer’s business; (o) any period of employment with a previous employer that counts towards the employees period of employment; (p) a list of any other documents that form part of the contract of employment, indicating a place that is reasonably accessible to the employee where a copy of each may be obtained.
Pay, payslips and deductions
At least R30,23 an hour for every ordinary hour worked, and the entitlement cannot be given away.
The payment of a national minimum wage cannot be waived and the national minimum wage takes precedence over any contrary provision in any contract, collective agreement, sectoral determination or law, except a law amending this Act.
No deduction may be made from pay without the employee’s written agreement to a specified debt, or a law, collective agreement, court order or arbitration award permitting it. And although the BCEA switches its payslip rule off below five employees, the National Minimum Wage Act applies the same section to the payment of the minimum wage to all workers — so the safe practice is a payslip from the first pay day.
Sections 32, 33 and 34 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act apply to the payment of the national minimum wage to workers.
Registrations
SARS within 21 business days of becoming an employer, the Unemployment Insurance Fund as soon as you start employing with declarations before the seventh of each month, and the Compensation Fund on starting to employ. These are covered step by step in registrations and returns.
Discrimination and the Employment Equity Act
Chapter II of the Employment Equity Act applies to every employer, whatever its size. The duty is active, not merely negative.
Every employer must take steps to promote equal opportunity in the workplace by eliminating unfair discrimination in any employment policy or practice.
Harassment is a form of that discrimination, and the display duty is on every employer too — not only designated ones.
An employer must display at the workplace where it can be read by employees a notice in the prescribed form, informing them about the provisions of this Act
A harassment policy
No statute says “you must have a harassment policy”. What the Employment Equity Act does is make the employer liable for an employee’s harassment unless the employer can prove it did all that was reasonably practicable to prevent it — and the 2022 Code then ties the policy directly to that defence.
Employers should, subject to any existing collective agreements and applicable statutory provisions in respect of harassment, adopt a harassment policy, which should take cognisance of and be guided by the provisions of this Code.
The adoption of a harassment policy and the communication of the contents of the policy to employees, should, amongst other factors, be taken into consideration in determining whether the employer has discharged its obligations in accordance with the provisions of section 60(2) of the EEA.
The consequence of not having one, or of having one and ignoring it, is a real liability rather than an administrative penalty. The Supreme Court of Appeal has held that an employer’s common-law duty of care extends beyond physical hazards:
And the Labour Appeal Court has treated an employer’s failure to follow its own policy as decisive:
Disciplinary rules
An employer that dismisses must prove a fair reason and a fair procedure. The 2025 Code of Good Practice: Dismissal is what fairness is measured against, and it is explicitly proportionate to the size of the business.
It is preferable for employers, especially medium and larger employers, to adopt written disciplinary rules and procedures to establish the standard of conduct required of their employees and to create certainty and consistency in the application of discipline.
Note — Quoted from the scanned Gazette; the wording was checked against the Gazette page itself on 9 September 2026.
This Code should not be interpreted as requiring small businesses to comply with obligations that are not practical or feasible for their operation.
Note — Quoted from the scanned Gazette.
A whistleblowing procedure
This is the duty most often missed entirely, and it is unqualified: it applies to every employer, and it reaches beyond employees to contractors, consultants and agents.
Every employer must— (i) authorise appropriate internal procedures for receiving and dealing with information about improprieties; and (ii) take reasonable steps to bring the internal procedures to the attention of every employee and worker.
Personal information
Employee data is personal information, so POPIA applies from the first hire. Three obligations bite immediately: an information officer who may not act until registered, documented processing operations, and reasonable security safeguards with breach notification.
Officers must take up their duties in terms of this Act only after the responsible party has registered them with the Regulator.
And every private body needs a PAIA manual, available in four places. The small-business exemption is gone: the Information Regulator’s position is that there is no legal basis to extend it beyond December 2021.
The manual referred to in subsection (1), or the updated version thereof as referred to in subsection (2) must be made available— (a) on the web site, if any, of the private body; (b) at the principal place of business of the private body for public inspection during normal business hours; (c) to any person upon request and upon the payment of a reasonable amount; and (d) to the Information Regulator upon request.
A safe workplace
The general duty applies from the first employee, and it is qualified only by reasonable practicability.
Every employer shall provide and maintain, as far as is reasonably practicable, a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of his employees.
With it come the duty to evaluate the risks, to make employees conversant with the hazards, to report serious incidents, and the smoking rules — which include a protection employers routinely overlook:
employees may object to smoking in the workplace in contravention of this Act without retaliation of any kind
From five employees
The BCEA’s small-employer relief is precise about what it removes, and it is worth reading rather than assuming.
Sections 29(1)(n), (o) and (p), 30, 31 and 33 do not apply to— (a) an employer who employs fewer than five employees;
So at five employees you add three of the sixteen particulars — the applicable council or sectoral determination, prior service that counts, and the list of other documents forming part of the contract — plus three separate documents:
- The rights statement on the wall. “An employer must display at the workplace where it can be read by employees a statement in the prescribed form of the employee’s rights under this Act in the official languages which are spoken in the workplace.”
- Records. A register of each employee’s name and occupation, time worked, remuneration paid and, for anyone under 18, date of birth — kept three years from the last entry.
- Payslips under section 33 (which, as above, you should be issuing anyway).
The Occupational Health and Safety Act adds one at the same headcount: a copy of the Act and the relevant regulations kept readily available at the workplace, and made available to an employee on request below five.
From ten and from twenty
Above five employees at a workplace you need a first-aid box. Above 10, a certified first-aider becomes compulsory:
Where more than 10 employees are employed at any workplace
Note — Quoted from the 1986 regulation text. The first-aid box threshold sits in a later amendment that could not be retrieved from a primary source, so treat “more than five” as the working position and confirm it before relying on it.
At 10 employees the fixed-term regime in section 198B of the Labour Relations Act starts to bind you — below that, the three-month rule and the list of justifiable reasons simply do not apply (unless you run more than one business or were formed by dividing one). See fixed-term contracts.
Above 20 employees at a workplace, health and safety representatives must be designated in writing within four months, one for every 100 employees in shops and offices and one for every 50 elsewhere, with a committee once there are two or more.
every employer who has more than 20 employees in his employment at any workplace
From fifty
At 50 employees you become a designated employer under the Employment Equity Act. The turnover test that used to catch smaller but wealthier businesses was repealed with effect from 1 January 2025, so headcount is now the only route in for a private employer.
an employer who employs 50 or more employees;
That brings a package of obligations: consult with employees, analyse the workforce, prepare an employment equity plan aligned to the sectoral numerical targets gazetted in April 2025, report annually, display the report, keep records, and submit an income-differential statement.
A designated employer must submit a report to the Director-General once every year on such date and in such manner as may be prescribed.
The reporting window runs online from 1 September to 15 January. Penalties are the most serious in this field: fines start at the greater of R1,5 million or 2% of turnover and rise with repetition.
Above 50 employees, the large-scale retrenchment procedure in section 189A applies once the sliding-scale numbers are contemplated — at least 10 dismissals in a business of up to 200 employees, rising to 50 in a business of more than 500 — which brings CCMA facilitation and a 60-day minimum consultation period.
Triggers that ignore headcount
- Payroll above R500 000 a year — the skills development levy at 1% of payroll, and classification with the applicable SETA. SARS registers all employers for the levy even where the exemption applies.
- Tendering to an organ of state — an employment equity compliance certificate or a declaration must be attached to the offer, and a designated employer must comply with Chapters II and III while others need only Chapter II. Note one wrinkle to raise with your attorney: the Department issues these certificates and organs of state ask for them, but the consolidated Act still records section 53 as not yet commenced. Do not build a bid strategy on either reading without advice.
- A sector with a bargaining council agreement extended to non-parties — registration, levies and the council’s own minimum terms, which can override the BCEA floor. Metal and engineering, motor, road freight, private security, contract cleaning and hospitality are the usual ones.
- Supplying staff to clients for reward — you are a temporary employment service and must be registered; the certificate must be displayed where you operate.
- Monitoring email, calls or system use — interception is lawful only with consent or under the business-purpose exception with advance notice, which is what an acceptable-use policy exists to establish.
- A public or state-owned company — a remuneration policy and an annual remuneration report, in force since 22 May 2026. Private companies are not covered.
What is not required
to prepare a written policy concerning the protection of the health and safety of his employees at work
Nor is a written smoking policy prescribed — the Tobacco Products Control Act requires the conduct, the signage and the employee protections. And nothing requires an employee to sign a policy for it to bind them.
Finally, a leave policy is recommended rather than required — but the floor beneath it is mandatory, and it moved recently. The Constitutional Court rewrote the parental-leave provisions in October 2025, reading in a shared entitlement pending remedial legislation:
Any leave policy written before October 2025 is now out of date on that point. Build your own register with the minimum policies tool, and read registrations and returns for the deadlines.
A first set of contracts and policies together is usually cheaper as a package — see the Employment and HR Starter.
Common questions
Few documents are prescribed by name. What is prescribed is content and conduct: written particulars, payslips, records, the two displayed summaries, a whistleblowing procedure, POPIA measures and a PAIA manual. The harassment policy and disciplinary rules are effectively required — a Code makes them how you discharge the duty.
Only partly. Section 28(2) disapplies three of the sixteen particulars, the displayed rights statement, the registers and the payslip rule below five employees. The core written particulars apply from the first employee — and nothing outside the BCEA is affected at all.
Only if the chief inspector directs it. Every employer must provide a safe working environment, evaluate the risks and tell employees about the hazards — a written policy is good evidence of that, not a standalone duty.
No. Lawful issue, a reasonable rule, communication and consistent application make a rule binding. A signed acknowledgement is just the cheapest proof of the communication.
Yes. The exemption for small private bodies lapsed at the end of December 2021 and the Regulator has said there is no legal basis to extend it. Every private body, including a sole proprietor, must have a manual and make it available on the website, at the premises, on request and to the Regulator.