Employment contracts for small businesses

Employment contracts in UK law

UK employment law requires you to give a written employment contract to all of your employees within two months of them starting work for you. In fact it is a really good idea to do so anyway, as an employment contract sets out the terms of your agreement with each member of staff.

We do not recommend that you use standard employment contract templates. The right employment contract for one company may well be unsuitable for a different company, and it is important to use one which is appropriate for your needs.

Types of employment contract

There are a number of types of employment contract: permanent or fixed term; full time or part time; flexible hours; term-time; casual hours and the high profile zero hours contracts. It is important to choose the right contract for each member of your staff—it may well be that you need several different types of employment contract.

What should be included in a contract of employment?

You can also choose to include a number of clauses and restrictive covenants in your contract(s) if you wish to. For example you might want to restrict some of your staff with strong sales relationships from moving to a competitor straight after leaving your company, or from poaching other members of your team.

How we help with employment contracts

We make it really easy for you to get the right employment contracts for your staff.

• We can advise on what type of employment contracts you need. We have tried hard to make all our contracts easy to read, unlike many we see—contracts don’t need to be complicated to be legally valid!
• We have developed an employment contract generator which most of our customers use as part of our web-based HR software. This lets you issue new contracts to members of staff in literally just a few minutes, and can cover all the types of contract you might need, and include a wide range of other clauses and restrictive covenants.
• We can set up a standard contract template for your company, to save even more time. This is much easier and faster than using a word processor, and also reduces the risk of typing errors by using information already on our system.

If you already have employment contracts in place, we can review these to see if they are suitable and legally compliant. We will discuss our suggestions with you and help you implement them with your staff. And if you wish to, you can easily store your own employment contracts securely online using our web-based HR software.

Keeping contracts of employment up to date

You would hope that all good HR consultants would provide you with a good employment contract. One area we go the extra mile is with keeping you up to date as the world and employment law changes.

As part of our service we offer regular Legal Updates, letting you know about any changes to employment law you might need to know about. (You can find out more about our Legal Updates here.) And if any change in the law means that we should change our contracts, we will do that automatically and let you know.

We will also talk to you on every annual anniversary after you join us to see if your company’s needs have changed at all, and to make sure that you have the right contracts. Of course, if you ever think you might need something different, you are welcome to get in touch with us at any stage.

HR Support for UK businesses

Our friendly, flexible and cost-effective HR Support Service is here to help with all of your HR problems. Find out more about how we keep your business compliant and set you up to succeed.