EMPLOYMENT LAW

Contracts of Employment

Employment law issues probably start (or better still don’t start) with a good contract of employment. Your employer is legally bound to adhere to all sorts of rules around your contract of employment and terms and conditions. If you have any employment law queries about contracts of employment we have hopefully covered them here. What is a contract of employment? What should be included in my contract of employment? How much does a contract of employment cost? It is hopefully all here! If not, and you would like to speak to one of our expert employment law solicitors you can email us info@qlaw.co.uk or call us at 03300 020 365!

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Contracts of Employment FAQs

A contract of employment sets out the terms of the relationship between employer and employee. It has to contain certain required terms, including start date, names of employer and employee, place of work, hours of work, rate of pay and how often the employee will be paid, employee’s entitlement to holiday and sick pay, details of training requirements, how much notice is required to terminate the employment, data protection provisions and so on.

The contract of employment sets out the terms of the relationship between employer and employee. Whilst you may not need to look at the contract while everything runs smoothly, if there is a complaint or disciplinary or performance issue or a potential claim, it will be essential to know what the employment contract says.

The law sets out what has to be included in an employment contract. This includes start date, names of employer and employee, place of work, hours of work, rate of pay and how often the employee will be paid, employee’s entitlement to holiday and sick pay, details of training requirements, how much notice is required to terminate the employment, data protection provisions, and so on. In addition, we would usually recommend that other terms are also included, like confidentiality obligations and post termination restrictive covenants.

Yes, all employees should be issued with an employment contract before or at the start of employment.

A zero hours contract is a contract where the employee or worker has no guaranteed hours, and agrees to be potentially available for work. The employee or worker is only paid for the hours they actually work, so there is no guarantee of any pay, or any particular amount.

We can provide tailored template employment contracts! We will ask some questions about your business, and about the employee(s) you want to issue contracts to, and will then prepare the required template(s) for you to use. We charge a fixed fee per class of employment contract that you need.

We might in future offer a free template employment contract, but it wouldn’t be tailored to your business or to the employee, so we couldn’t guarantee that it would be appropriate for the particular circumstances.   

Ask us to help! We will ask some questions about your business, and about the employee(s) you want to issue contracts to, and will then prepare the required template(s) for you to use. We charge a fixed fee per class of employment contract that you need.

Yes, a contract of employment has to be in writing.

All contracts should be signed, to prove that both parties have agreed the terms. If a contract of employment hasn’t been signed, but the employee has worked and been paid for a while, there will be an argument that both parties have agreed to the terms even though they haven’t actually signed the contract. But it’s always best to sign a contract.

All contracts should be signed, to prove that both parties have agreed the terms. If a contract of employment hasn’t been signed, but the employee has worked and been paid for a while, there will be an argument that both parties have agreed to the terms even though they haven’t actually signed the contract. But it’s always best to sign a contract.

The law sets out what has to be included in an employment contract. This includes start date, names of employer and employee, place of work, hours of work, rate of pay and how often the employee will be paid, employee’s entitlement to holiday and sick pay, details of training requirements, how much notice is required to terminate the employment, data protection provisions, and so on. In addition, we would usually recommend that other terms are also included, like confidentiality obligations and post termination restrictive covenants.

Contracts of employment should be issued before or at the start of employment.

At the start of employment, or sometimes beforehand.

Yes, a contract of employment does need a start date.

Depending on the circumstances, a contract of employment comes into effect when it is signed or at the start of employment, or if it’s a new contract issued during employment, it comes into effect on the agreed date, for instance on a promotion.

A contract of employment can be a couple of pages, or a reasonably lengthy document, depending on the employee, their seniority and the nature of their role. Sometimes employment contracts will also include schedules setting out benefits, bonus terms, and so on. Sometimes disciplinary and grievance procedures will be appended, though these should be included in a full Staff Handbook and will not usually form part of the contract itself.

We can provide tailored template employment contracts for £500 plus VAT per contract/class of contracts for junior (non-Director) employees. We charge extra for matters such as bonus terms, tailored restrictive covenants, and so on. We charge £850 to £1,000 plus VAT per contract/class of contract of Directors Service Agreements, including tailored restrictive covenants. To work out what you need (how many different classes of contract, what type of contract, etc), we will ask some questions about your business, and about the employee(s) you want to issue contracts to, and will then prepare the required template(s) for you to use. We charge a fixed fee per class of employment contract that you need. By “class of contract” we mean, for instance, a full time contract, part time/flexible contract, or job title/job type (admin, junior manager, professional, Director, etc).

We might in future provide a free template contract of employment, but would always recommend that we provide tailored template contracts based on your particular requirements and the employee(s) you want to issue contracts to. In our view, non-specific templates don’t offer as much value for money for your business compared to the specialist, experienced employment law advice that we can provide.

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