Employment and people
Employment agreement
The full written terms of a job, going well past the offer letter: duties, hours, pay and review, holiday and other leave, sickness, notice on both sides, what happens on the last day, and the promises about confidentiality and ownership that carry on afterwards. Employment law is intensely local — what must be in writing, what may be agreed and what cannot be given up all change from one system to another — so the paper is written for the place the job is in and says which system it names.
- In the catalogue
- Employment and people
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Employers putting a permanent hire on the payroll.
- Growing companies replacing an inherited template with terms that match how they actually work.
- An employee reading the terms before signing them.
What you are deciding
- The role, the duties and who the person reports to
- Pay, when it is reviewed, and anything variable
- Hours, place of work, and any flexibility on either side
- Holiday, sickness and other leave
- Probation, if there is one, and what happens at the end of it
- Notice on each side, and what happens during it
- Confidentiality, invention ownership and anything restricted after leaving
- Which legal system the job is under
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties and the role
- 2Start date and probation
- 3Duties
- 4Pay and review
- 5Hours and place of work
- 6Holiday and leave
- 7Confidentiality and inventions
- 8Notice and termination
- 9Post-employment obligations
- 10Governing law
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- employment agreement
- employment contract
- contract of employment
- staff contract
- written statement of terms
- job contract
Questions people ask
- Does an employment contract have to be in writing?
- It varies by legal system. Many require certain terms to be given to the employee in writing within a set period, and some treat unwritten terms as still binding. The requirement comes from local law rather than from the document.
- What is a probation period for?
- It is an early stretch of the job with its own, usually shorter, notice arrangements. Whether one may be used, and what it may do, depends on local employment law.
- Can an employment contract override statutory rights?
- Generally not. Most systems treat a range of employment rights as minimums that a contract may improve on but not remove. Ask a lawyer if a term looks like it is trying to.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds