Asking the Person to Do Something New
Direction is yours, but a change large enough to alter the job described in their contract is not direction.
Day-to-day direction
Any employment obligation to the person
Promising the person anything about their job
Being the person's employer
YoursThe provider'sCrosses the twoNeither contract
Four matters, and no share: what any one agreement covers differs by agreement. One crosses both, and the handoff is where these arrangements fail. One sits in neither contract. The line that is not there, and the one people keep acting as though were.
Five changes to what somebody was asked to do, and what each one actually needed
Move them from one project to another within the same discipline
What you actually ask for
Nothing: allocation is direction and nobody else is involved
What you cannot require
Nothing worth naming, provided the work is recognisably the job they were hired for
Nobody has to agreeTakes: A conversation
Add a second area of responsibility alongside the first
What you actually ask for
Nothing contractually, but a conversation about capacity and about what drops
What you cannot require
That they absorb it indefinitely without anything being removed, which is a management question rather than a legal one
Nobody has to agreeTakes: A week, mostly spent deciding what stops
Change the job substantially, so the contract description no longer fits
What you actually ask for
A revised job description, a contract amendment from the provider, and the person's agreement
What you cannot require
That the change take effect before the amendment exists, because in several jurisdictions that is itself the problem
Both have to agreeTakes: Three to six weeks, and in some countries a consultation as well
Change their working hours or pattern
What you actually ask for
An amendment, because hours are a contractual term almost everywhere
What you cannot require
That a pattern be imposed, since it is a term of a contract you are not party to
Both have to agreeTakes: A month, and the person may decline without consequence
Ask them to work from a different country for a period
What you actually ask for
A question to the provider before anything is said to the person
What you cannot require
That the provider accept a tax or right-to-work exposure in a country it does not employ in
The provider has to agreeTakes: Days to weeks, and the answer is sometimes simply no
Five changes, and the first two were yours outright. The line falls where the job stops being recognisably the job in the contract. One buyer's own practice; what counts as a material change differs by jurisdiction.
Direction is yours. Asking this person to work on something different needs nobody's permission, and most of what managers worry about here is already theirs to do.
The practical lesson in “Asking the Person to Do Something New” is that a third-party arrangement still leaves day-to-day management with the operating team. Used for employee monitoring software with screenshots, read the relevant product explanation can make time and project context easier to review, provided the purpose is disclosed, access is limited and every consequential inference receives human review.
The line falls where the change is large enough that the job in their employment contract is no longer the job they are doing.
For a separate perspective on “Asking the Person to Do Something New”, consult the SHRM global HR resources. Compare it with the actual contract, country and operating process rather than using a general resource as a local conclusion.
Where the line actually is
A different project, a different priority, a different team to work with: direction. A different role, different hours, a different place of work, or a materially different set of duties: a change of terms.
The first costs a conversation. The second costs an amendment, the person's agreement, and in some countries a process.
| Change | What it is | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Different project | Direction | A conversation |
| Extra responsibility | Direction | A conversation about capacity |
| Different role | A change of terms | An amendment, and agreement |
| Different hours | A change of terms | An amendment, and agreement |
| Different country | A tax and permit question | The provider, first |
Most of what managers hesitate over sits well inside the first category. The hesitation is usually caused by not knowing where the line is rather than by being close to it.
Why the contract description matters
The provider wrote a job description into the employment contract at hiring. In several jurisdictions, a substantial departure from it gives the person rights, and gives the provider a problem it will raise with you.
Keeping that description broad at the outset is the cheapest prevention available, and it is a two-minute conversation at offer stage.
The gradual version
Nobody announces a change of role. The work drifts over eighteen months until the person is doing something else entirely, and the contract still describes the first job.
That drift is the common case rather than the exception. A short annual check — does the contract still roughly describe this — catches it.
Asking rather than instructing
For anything near the line, ask. The person is usually pleased to be asked and the answer is usually yes.
An instruction that turns out to have needed agreement is harder to unwind than a request that was granted, and the conversational cost is identical.
When they say no
They are entitled to. Their contract describes a job and they agreed to that job.
A refusal is information about whether the change is reasonable, and occasionally about whether the person is still in the right role. Treating it as insubordination is both wrong and, in this structure, not available to you.
Hours and pattern
Contractual almost everywhere, including a shift from five days to four, a change of core hours, or a requirement to be available at different times.
Managers routinely treat this as scheduling. It is a term, and changing it without agreement is the commonest unintentional breach in these arrangements.
Place of work
Also contractual in most countries, and additionally a tax question. Moving somebody from home working to an office, or the reverse, is a change of terms.
Moving them to another country is a different matter entirely and is covered in its own note. Ask the provider before anything is said.
Travel
Usually fine where the contract anticipates it and the trips are short. Regular travel to another country raises the same tax and permit questions as relocation, more quietly.
Establish the position once, for the pattern you actually expect, rather than trip by trip.
Where the travel is to your own offices, say so when you ask. The answer is frequently different for visits to a group company than for client work, and the provider will not guess which you mean.
Telling the provider what the person is doing
Not required for ordinary direction, and not worth the traffic. Required where the role has materially changed, where hours or place have changed, or where a new responsibility carries a licence or qualification requirement locally.
A short note at the point of change is enough. Providers rarely ask and frequently need it.
Expanding the role without expanding the pay
A management problem rather than a legal one, and a familiar one. The difference here is that fixing it takes six weeks and two other parties.
Anticipate it: if you are growing somebody's responsibility, start the pay conversation at the same time rather than after they ask.
Writing the change down
A message to the person confirming what the role now is, and a note to the provider where the contract needs to follow. Both short.
Three years on, the record of what the job became is the only protection against an argument about what it was.
What cannot be settled in advance
What counts as a material change in a given country. The threshold is a matter of local law and local practice, it moves, and the same change can be routine in one jurisdiction and require consultation in another.
That is a question for the provider or for local advice, asked specifically, about the change you actually intend. The general principle in this note tells you when to ask; it does not tell you what the answer will be.