Employment Contracts and Handbooks

A written statement of the employment particulars specified in the Employment Rights Act 1996 must be provided to each employee within eight weeks of the commencement of employment.  This is the bare minimum required by law and employers should put in place proper employment contracts and directors’ service agreements to protect themselves adequately.
We draft employment contracts tailored to the parties’ needs to provide this necessary protection and can convert foreign law contracts to make them English law compliant.  We can review and update existing contracts and advise on the methods for persuading employees to accept the new terms.  We can advise on employment in France and Germany, and provide dual-language contracts compliant with local law.

To order to protect an employer’s legitimate interests, such as confidential information, trade connections and workforce stability, we can advise in detail on the use of restrictive covenants in employment contracts and carefully draft such covenants to increase the likelihood of their enforceability against your employees.

Employers are recommended to have a staff handbook complementary to the employees’ individual employment contracts once they have 5 or more employees. A staff handbook contains the employer’s policies and procedures including disciplinary and grievance procedures which are required by law.  We can prepare handbooks covering all of your areas of concern or combine them with your overseas staff handbook for continuity.

Please contact us for further information.