To avoid confusion and contention over an employee’s position, duties, and responsibilities, the employer should clearly state the employee’s title and should clearly delineate the employee’s main responsibilities. However, both the employer’s business needs and the employee’s skills and knowledge will grow and change over the course of the contract. Accordingly, it is in both the employer’s and the employee’s interests to leave room for flexibility and change in these descriptions.
Other key terms of an employment agreement are provisions that state the length of the contract as well as the employee’s compensation and benefits. The parties should evaluate the appropriate length of a contract by analyzing the nature of the position and the skills needed to execute the duties and responsibilities of the position.
To prevent employees taking their talents and employer’s trade secrets to competitors , a growing number of employers are requiring employees to sign non-compete agreements. While it may seem illogical that an employee cannot use skills learned at one job to advance his career at another job, many companies rely on non-compete clauses to limit just that. In realizing that non-competes are agreements in restraint of trade, courts critically examine and narrowly construe non-compete agreements. Thus, a broad-form agreement that is not narrowly tailored to serve the employer’s business interest is likely unenforceable. In addition, an employer’s effort to enforce an invalid non-compete can invite counterclaims and in certain extreme cases, sanctions.
Including severance provisions in an employment agreement can be an easy way for both the employer and the employee to obtain the severance package that they desire should the employment relationship end while the parties are on good terms with each other.