The employment contract

Introduction

The moment an applicant unconditionally accepts your offer of a job, a contract of employment comes into existence. The terms of the contract can be oral, written, implied or a mixture of all three.

Even if you do not issue a written contract, you are under a legal duty to provide most employees with a written statement of main employment particulars within two months of the start of their employment with you. If you have an employee who is going to work abroad for more than a month within two months of starting work, you must give them their written statement before they leave.

The written statement is not itself the contract but it can provide evidence of the terms and conditions of employment between you and the employee if there is a dispute later on.

This guide lays out your legal obligations when issuing a contract of employment or a written statement.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• What a contract of employment is
• The written statement
• The principal statement
• Putting together an employee's written statement
• Implied terms of an employment contract
• Posting workers overseas
• How to change an existing contract
• Employee enforcement of the right to a written statement
• Breach-of-contract claims

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