An Employment Agreement establishes the terms of employment between an employer and an individual employee. It sets out the representations made by the parties, their liabilities under the contract, and the duration of the employment. Both parties undertake to comply with relevant laws and regulations, as well as company policies and procedures. Some of these obligations, such as confidentiality and non-compete provisions may survive the termination of the contract.
The core features of a contract of employment for a new employee include:
- The employer's name and address
- The employee's job title and brief job description
- Place of work
- Date of agreement
- Start date and duration
- Hours of work and holiday entitlement
- Termination and notice periods
- Optional benefits such as sick pay
Legislate's employment contract template has some additional clauses which can be inserted if applicable such as:
- Collective agreements
- Paternity and maternity leave
Employees: Entitlements and obligations
Under an employment contract, employees will contract to receive certain entitlements and will also place themselves under certain obligations.
Some common employee entitlements include:
- Reimbursement for all reasonable expenses incurred
- A yearly paid holiday in addition to public holidays
- The option for limited shares in any non-competitor company
- The opportunity to raise grievances via grievance procedures
- The chance to join the Company pension scheme.
- Entitlement to pay and bonuses
An employee, being taken into a new business, will also have to comply with a company's various policies and rules. These will include the obligation to comply with:
- All reasonable and lawful directions given by the Company
- All relevant anti-bribery laws and notify CEO of any potential breach
- Any rules and procedures in the Staff Handbook including the data protection policy
- Any IT policy in place when using Company computer, software, and data
- The IP provisions of the Agreement for limited compensation
- Company rules and requests during period of Garden Leave
An employee might also be obligated to:
- Ensue non-disclosure of the Company’s confidential information
- To delete the Company’s confidential information upon request
- To hold on trust for the Company all IP rights not automatically vested in Company
- To assist the Company enforce and defend its IP rights
- To inform the Company of Employment IPs upon their creation
- To offer the Company right of refusal to acquire Employment IPs
- To waive all moral rights to any copyright forming part of Employment IPs
During the course of employment, an employee will often be under a special duty to further the interests of the Company. In doing so, the employee might also be obligated to partake in certain activities, such as travel, and refrain from certain activities, such as engaging in other businesses.
The employee also has certain obligations to inform the Company if they are no longer entitled to work in the UK; notify the Company of their absence from work, and; disclose any family matters which may reasonably interfere with their employment.
Upon termination of an employment contract, an employee may still carry obligations under that agreement. This will include:
- Returning all property of the Company
- To evidence deletion of all copies and records of the Company’s confidential information
- To enter into reasonable post-termination restrictive covenants for a specified term
- To inform third parties of terms of post-termination restrictions
- An obligation not to represent any association with the Company
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Employers: Entitlements and obligations
Similarly, the employer will also be affected by rights and obligations under the employment contract and statutory controls.
Under the employment contract, the company will typically have a right to:
- Terminate the contract during probationary period with notice or payment in lieu of notice
- Reserve their ownership of all documents, hardware and software provided for the Employee’s use as well as all IP rights, employment inventions, and materials therein
- Use the Employee’s name to advance Company’s IP interests
- Terminate the contract with no notice nor payment for breach or incapacity
- Process the Employee’s personal data for agreed purposes
- Transfer the Employee to another employer
- Monitor the Employee’s use of Company’s electronic communication systems
- Deduct from Employee’s salary any sums owed to Company
- Suspend Employee while investigating disciplinary matter
Under the employment contract, the company will also be under obligations to the employee, many of which are required by law. The company has a duty to set up a pension scheme, observe Health and Safety Regulations, abide by the Equality Act 2010, pay the employee the agreed amount and inform the Employee of the outcome of any probationary periods.
Benefits of creating your Employment Contract template with Legislate
Legislate offers basic employment contract templates which are easy-to-understand yet contain all the key elements to protect your business. Legislate offers an end-to-end contracting experience which means that employment offer letters, employment contracts and staff handbooks can be created from the Legislate platform and offers a unified contracting experience for the employer and employees.
Legislate’s patented knowledge graph approach (United States patent 11,087,219) understands and reads your contracts in a new and novel way. It allows obligations and restrictions under a contract to be automatically retrieved and visible to ensure that both parties know exactly what their contracts mean. Furthermore, our approach makes managing your staff and employees painless, such as through the possibility of notifying employers when pay rises for each employee might be expected.
Legislate’s employment contracts:
- Are lawyer reviewed and written in plain English
- Show clearly the obligations and rights of the Employer and Employee
- Can be easily tailored to part time or full time Employees
- Cater for remote workers
- Support probation periods, payment in lieu of notice, garden leave, post employment restrictions
Read our brief guide for additional information to help you build a team on Legislate.
Main benefits of growing your team with Legislate
- Access all the additional documents you need to hire including job offer letters, privacy policies and staff handbooks
- Access other up-to-date legal documents such as NDAs, consultancy agreements and sales contracts to grow your business
- Answer contract FAQs natively within Legislate
- Offer a better user experience to your employees who can now access their employment information at anytime
- Easily access employment statistics to help you manage your payroll in real time.
Which employment contracts can you create with Legislate?
Below are some examples of employment contracts you can create with Legislate:
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a software developer
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a remote worker
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a business development representative
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a office manager
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a marketing manager
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a project manager
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a customer assistant
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a store manager
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a delivery driver
- Full-time, part-time and fixed term employment contract for a business analyst
- Employment contract for an employee with a probationary period
- Employment contract for an employee with permitted outside interests
- Employment contract for an employee with a restriction period
- Employment contract for an employee with benefits
How to create an Employment contract template with Legislate
Creating an employment agreement with Legislate is simple. Set the terms of the employment by answering some simple questions and invite your employee when you are happy with the terms.
Once the employee has reviewed the preview and accepted the terms they can sign. Legislate also supports witnessing should you require this.
For more information on how to create your agreements with Legislate, sign up, read our employment contract tutorial or book an introductory call with one of our team members.