Commercial terms
What is an assignment?
An assignment is a period of work a temporary worker carries out for a hirer through an employment business. It is the unit that terms, rates, qualifying periods and compliance records attach to.
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<a href="https://agencyoptix.co.uk/glossary/assignment">What is an assignment?</a> — diagram by
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</figure>Getting its boundaries right matters beyond administration. Where one assignment ends and another begins affects AWR qualifying periods, rate changes and which set of terms applies, so a change of role or hirer is a data event rather than a note.
Assignment details also carry the hirer's own obligations back to the worker — the risks of the role, the qualifications required, the arrangements on site. Those come from the hirer and need to be captured rather than assumed.
Extensions are where records drift. An assignment quietly running six months past its stated end date, on terms agreed for a two-week cover, is the most common state a compliance audit finds.
What goes wrong in practice
- Extensions never recorded, so the live assignment does not match any agreed terms.
- Role changes handled as a note rather than as a new assignment, distorting qualifying periods.
- Hirer-supplied risk information gathered once and never updated across a long placement.