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Reviewing the fundamental elements of your employment contract

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The foundation of any employment relationship is the employee’s contract of employment. Whilst existing in conjunction with the companies own policies and guidelines, an employment contract provides the fundamentals of what will hopefully become an ongoing and fruitful employment relationship, It is therefore important for all new employees to carefully review the fundamentals of any proposed employment contract with a business lawyer in Melbourne, in order to fully understand your rights and obligations under the contract.

The Position

Any employment contract should provide a prospective employee with a clear understanding of the job requirements, the hours of employment and the essential duties it entails. This should be written in straightforward language, so that you are fully aware of your expectations as an employee should you choose to enter the contractual relationship.

Understanding your obligations in fulfilling the position offered by the employee is important in regards to ‘repudiation’. In contract law this refers to unwillingness or an inability to substantially perform the contract and is grounds for termination. It is therefore important to understand the standards of performance that your prospective employer has included as terms of the contract, in order to avoid a breach of the contract which amounts to grounds for termination.

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Length of Agreement

An employment contract should contain an original term of employment and specify conditions that are applicable in relation to extending or reducing the contract term. This is particularly important to review for those entering into seasonal or fixed term employment. This ensures that you are fully aware of the length of the employment, and that an extension of the term may not be a definite when entering the employment relationship.

Compensation

Adequate compensation for hard work is a fundamental of any employment relationship. If a salary has been negotiated it is important that these figures are entered into the contract, or that a base hourly wage that has been agreed upon by both parties exists within the terms of the contract. If the position involves the payment of a commission, it is important that the percentage is included and agreed upon as a term of the contract and that any overtime authorization policy that exists in the company is fair and agreeable.

Restraint of Trade and Confidentiality clauses

Restraint of trade clauses are commonly found in employment contracts and are therefore an important condition of employment which is hard to fully understand. Restraint of trade clauses regulate an employee’s conduct normally in the work area or workplace while employee is still engaged in the employment relationship and furthermore restrict a former employee’s conduct once the employment relationship has ended. This therefore also protects the employer’s business interests.

A restraint of trade clause can have lasting effects on your prospects – be it leaving your current work or then looking for other jobs, following the end of your employment relationship. It therefore is important to seek the advice of an experienced business lawyer in order to determine whether the terms are enforceable, and how they may impact you upon the end of your employment.

If a confidentiality clause exists in an employment contract it is important to understand exactly what is defined as ‘confidential information’. This will differ between companies and areas of employment, so it is important to ensure that you fully understand your obligations and the circumstances in which the disclosure of confidential information is permitted, should you choose to enter into an employment relationship.

Termination of employment

No termination of an employee’s employment will occur without a careful examination of the terms of that employee’s contract of employment. This is because the termination of employment is the end of the contractual relationship that exists between the employer and employee and therefore must comply with the terms agreed to within the contract. The elements of the contract in relation to grounds of termination are important for both parties, as they can result in claims for unfair dismissal under the Fair Work Act if a later termination of employment is a direct breach of the employment contract.

Reviewing these relevant terms in your employment contract with an experienced business lawyer is an important step in understanding your rights and entitlement for damages, should your employment later be terminated. It ensures that you enter into an employment relationship fully informed of your rights and obligations under the agreement, and will help foster a long and successful relationship with your future employer.

Bio: Laura Costello is in her third year of a Bachelor of Law/International Relations at Latrobe University. She is passionate about the law, the power of social media, and the ability to translate her knowledge of both common and complex legal topics to readers across a variety of mediums, in a way that is easy to understand.

Life Insurance Policies – Ins and outs

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With the so many uncertainties in life,Everyone needs to find a way of ensuring that they have their lives well secured. We never know when a tragedy like death or an illness might strike.

Is life insurance cover a necessity ?

When death comes, it might be of a spouse or a father who is the breadwinner of a family and when this happens, it means that the family is left with no one to cater for their basic needs. That is why it is very very important to have a life insurance cover policy that will ensure security for the future.

life insurance policy

At the work place, we have employers getting relevant life insurance policies for their employees. They ensure that these policies are well explained before any agreements are made. We have different insurance companies that deal with different insurance services eg cars, businesses, health and many others.

This article will look at life insurance policies. Life insurance policies are simply contracts signed by an individual and an insurer with the individual agreeing to be paying an agreed amount of money to the insurer either annually or at a lump sum. The insurer on the other hand agrees to pay the benefits to the beneficiary just in case the insurer dies or is stricken by a terminal illness and are no longer in their healthy state. The beneficiary is chosen by the insurer, it can either be a spouse, children, brothers or sisters, grandchildren etc.

Employer / Eemployee Life insurance

When an employer decides to offer insurance to his or her employers, they go for the life policies insurance. This is where we have the employer subscribing to an insurance company on their behalf and he pays the premiums to the insurance company. The employer has the money used to pay the premiums deducted from their salaries but these money is not counted or considered to be benefits and these premiums do not determine employers annual allowances.

When an employer decides to go for the life policy, they should have all the relevant life policies well explained to them before going ahead with the venture.

One thing they will need to know is that A Relevant Life Policy will not in any way benefit or profit them just in case their employee dies. Some employers can decide to insure their workers with the misconception that this will in a way bring a personal profit to them. This is however not the case because in the contract, the employee has beneficiaries listed down and so there is no chance of them getting the benefits. Another important thing they should know is that this policy is only available to their employees and cannot be extended to their family members, if they need to insure them, they will need to go for a different life insurance policy. The employer needs to play a role also in ensuring that the scheme succeeds by for example ensuring that the benefited fall into the right hands when death strikes.

They should also provide tax efficient benefits on death to make sure the beneficiaries do not end up paying half of their benefits to the tax collectors. However, there are circumstances where the policies cannot be used. Such are for example when the cause of death is not death or a terminal illness, there can be no benefits e.g. if the beneficiary who is the employee commits suicide, they will not get any benefits. In such a case, the policy is declared null and void Another is when one is not an employee of the insurer or is beyond employment age which is 75years old.

A life policy has benefits to both the employer and the employee e.g. to the employee, it assures them that when they die, their families will not be left to suffer or live in poverty because they are insured. A gain they are guaranteed of having their hospital bills catered for just in case they get some terminal illness. Last but not least, they have the advantage of choosing a beneficiary or beneficiaries of their choice. For The employer one of the most important benefit is that they will pay for the premiums with friendly tax deductions which will guarantee them of not getting losses at the cost of insuring their employees.

After having the Relevant Life Policies Explained. It is upto the employer to go ahead and get their employees insured.

Guest post by youell for relevantlifepolicyinsurance.co.uk