Employment contracts

An employment contract is often signed on someone’s first day, from a template that has been copied since the business was a handful of people. It rarely describes what the job has since become, and it tends to be read closely only once — when the relationship is ending and each side looks for the clause that helps them. By then a vague bonus promise, a missing provision or a non-compete that was never valid can cost more than the contract was ever meant to protect.

A sound contract does more than record a salary and a start date. It settles what kind of relationship this is in law, how the person may be paid and deployed, and which promises will still hold after they leave:

• the rules on what must be put in writing at the start, and on the information an employee is entitled to receive;
• the rules on the line between an employee and a self-employed contractor, and on what happens when the label does not match the reality;
• the rules on successive fixed-term contracts, and on when a chain of them becomes a permanent position;
• the rules on part-time, flexible and on-call arrangements, and on how hours must be set out in the contract;
• the rules on bonuses, commission and other variable pay, and on how much discretion an employer may keep over them;
• the rules on who owns the inventions, software and other work an employee creates in the course of the job;
• the rules on clauses that require an employee to repay training costs or a signing bonus after leaving early;
• the rules on staff who work across borders or remotely from abroad, and on which law governs their contract.

Our lawyers can support you with this.