Can a consultant do core activities in an organization?
Core activity under OSH Code means activity for which the establishment is set up, for an NGO this means program delivery. The intent of law is to ensure engagement of employees-regular or fixed term in core activity i.e. program delivery. Further, OSH code prohibits engagement of contract labor in core activity.
Please note that consultant is not covered under the definition of employee since engagement is through a contract for service and not contract of service. The law intends that core activity be delivered through employees and not consultant or contract labor. Consultants are engaged to provide professional or technical services based on qualification and experience which normal employees may lack. To have consultant contracts for delivery of core activity as for an employee will make them deemed employee entitled to all employee benefits. The social sector has used consultants in lieu of employees without fully considering their status as distinct from employees and to bypass offering employee benefits even though they render services to be delivered by employees routinely.
The intent to introduce fixed term employees (FTE) in SS Code is to address the practise of consultant engagement in routine employment i.e. core activity along with prohibiting contract labor engagement in core activity under OSH Code. So, for core activity, now the choice is regular or FTE essentially under the new codes.
Please consider above for employee categorization as a long-term HR strategy with the new codes now in place.
CS Sharad Bhargava