Employment Contract Template
Also searched as: Employment Agreement Template · Job Contract Template · Offer Letter Template
An employment contract sets the terms of the working relationship — role, pay, hours, leave, notice, and what happens on exit. Beyond the commercial terms, it is what establishes confidentiality and ownership of anything the employee creates during employment.
A downloadable template is written for a hypothetical deal, and usually protects whoever wrote it. The clause structure below is genuinely universal — but the terms that matter (what’s excluded, who owns what, what the cap is) depend entirely on your situation. This page gives you the structure and the decisions; the guided draft turns your answers into a document built for your deal.
What a employment contract must contain
These are the sections our drafting engine includes in every employment contract it produces. A document missing any of them has a gap worth closing before signature.
The guided draft is currently configured for India-law contracts. For an agreement governed by another jurisdiction, a lawyer can draft it for your governing law.
Decisions you need to make first
- 1Probation length and notice during it
Notice during probation is usually much shorter than after confirmation. Statutory limits on probation length apply in many jurisdictions and override contrary contract terms.
- 2Notice period after confirmation — and is it symmetrical?
Requiring three months from the employee but one from the employer is common and rarely justified by anything other than bargaining position.
- 3Is IP assignment included?
Without an express assignment clause, ownership of work created during employment can default in ways that surprise employers — particularly for contractors and creative roles.
- 4Restrictive covenants — non-compete or non-solicitation?
Non-solicitation is narrower and generally far more enforceable. A broad non-compete may be unenforceable in your jurisdiction while achieving nothing a non-solicit would not.
- 5How is compensation structured?
The split between fixed and variable pay affects statutory contributions and benefits in many jurisdictions, so it is a compliance decision as much as a commercial one.
Mistakes we see most often
- Asymmetric notice periods that heavily favour the employer
- Omitting IP assignment entirely, then discovering ownership is unclear after the person leaves
- A non-compete drafted so broadly it would not survive challenge
- No clarity on whether confirmation after probation is automatic or requires written action
- Terms that fall below statutory minimums, which are unenforceable regardless of signature
Clauses worth understanding first
Build it around your deal, not someone else’s.
Answer a short set of questions and get a document written for your terms — then have a lawyer review it before you sign.
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Other contract guides
This guide is general information about contract structure, not legal advice. What your agreement should say depends on your specific circumstances and the law that governs it.
All contract guides