Employment Contract Drafting

Employment Law Solicitors

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Rose & Rose

Employment Contract Drafting Solicitors in Kingston

Employment contracts that comply with the law and protect the business

Every employee in the UK is legally entitled to a written statement of their main terms of employment from day one. Most employers go further and use a full employment contract, both because the law requires more detailed information to be provided, and because a properly drafted contract is one of the simplest tools an employer has to protect the business.

Our employment law solicitors at Rose & Rose draft contracts for businesses of all sizes, from owner-managed companies hiring their first member of staff to larger organisations rolling out new terms across an entire workforce. We work in plain English and produce contracts that suit how your business actually runs.

Speak To Our Employment Team

If you need employment contracts drafted, reviewed or updated, please contact our team through the contact form or by emailing info@roselegal.co.uk to discuss the best way forward for you, and we will provide you with further and specific advice tailored to your circumstances.

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What The Law Requires

Under section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, every worker and employee must receive a written statement (an employment contract) of the main terms of their employment on or before their first day of employment. The statement must include:

The names of the employer and employee
The date employment began and the period of continuous employment
The job title and a brief description of duties
The place of work
Pay and how often it will be paid
Hours of work, including any variable working pattern
Holiday entitlement and pay
Sick leave and sick pay arrangements
Other paid leave
Notice periods on both sides
Probationary periods
Training entitlements and any compulsory training
Other benefits provided

Although this is the legal minimum, a well-drafted employee contract goes further and actively protects the business.

Contract Clauses That Protect Your Business

The additional clauses we typically include are among the most useful tools an employer has when staff leave or things go wrong. Our team will advise on the best approach, tailored specifically to suit your business’s needs. For example:

Protecting the information employees handle every day, including customer lists, pricing, supplier arrangements and commercial strategy.

Intellectual property.

Making clear that work product, designs, code and inventions created during employment belong to the company.

Restrictive covenants.

Reasonable restrictions on what an employee can do after they leave, including non-compete, non-solicitation of customers, and non-poaching of staff. Courts will only enforce restrictions that are reasonable in scope, geography and duration. Drafted poorly, they are worthless.

Garden leave.

The ability to put a departing employee on paid leave during their notice period to keep them out of the market.

Pay in lieu of notice (PILON).

The right to end employment immediately and pay out the notice period.

Bonus and commission.

Making clear whether bonuses are discretionary or contractual, and what happens to outstanding commission on leaving.
Lay-off and short time working.

Useful flexibility for industries with seasonal or unpredictable demand.

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Tailoring Contracts to Different Roles

A contract for a sales director is not the same as a contract for a part-time shop assistant. Different roles carry different risks, and a single template across an entire workforce often misses the point.

Our experienced employment lawyers can produce a small set of contracts tailored to the roles in your business, such as:

Director and senior management contracts with more substantial restrictive covenants
Standard staff contracts for office, retail or operational roles
Fixed-term contracts for short-term hires
Zero-hours and casual worker contracts where appropriate
Apprenticeship agreements

Staff Handbooks

Sitting alongside the contract, a staff handbook sets out your policies on grievances, disciplinary procedures, equality and diversity, family-friendly rights, sickness absence, IT and social media use, data protection, expenses, and anything else your business needs.

A handbook gives staff a single reference point and gives the business defensible procedures if a dispute arises later. Some policies should be contractual, for example, your disciplinary procedure may form part of the contract. Most should not be, so that the business can update them without renegotiating every contract. Our contract drafting team can advise on what should sit where, helping to keep your documents workable and effective.

Updating Existing Contracts

Employment law changes regularly, and contracts you drafted five years ago may no longer reflect the current position of your business or be in line with recent obligations. The most common gaps we see in older contracts are:

Out of date statutory references
No data protection clauses, or clauses pre-dating UK GDPR
Holiday clauses that have not been updated to reflect recent case law on holiday pay
Weak or unenforceable restrictive covenants
Probationary period clauses that no longer fit current practice

Our employment law team can audit your existing contracts and help you update them. Where the changes are significant, we will advise on the process for putting new terms in place, including consultation, consent and any risks of constructive dismissal claims.

Self-Employed And Consultancy Agreements

Not everyone working for your business is an employee. Genuinely self-employed contractors and consultants need a different type of agreement, one that reflects the commercial relationship without inadvertently creating the indicators of employment status, helping you put the right agreement in place from the start.

Getting this wrong can mean tax liabilities under IR35 and the off-payroll working rules, as well as employment rights claims. We can draft consultancy agreements and advise on employment status.

Speak To Our Employment Team

If you need employment contracts drafted, reviewed or updated, please contact our team through the contact form or by emailing info@roselegal.co.uk to discuss the best way forward for you, and we will provide you with further and specific advice tailored to your circumstances.

We work with businesses across Kingston, Surrey and London, and will produce contracts that suit the way your business operates.