skills/employment-contract-drafter/SKILL.md

---
name: employment-contract-drafter
description: Drafts jurisdiction-specific employment agreements and offer terms with coherent compensation, duties, IP, confidentiality, restraints and termination provisions. Use for new hires, promotions, transfers, remote work or restated employment terms.
---

# Employment Contract Drafter

Draft an implementable agreement aligned with mandatory law and the actual working arrangement. Do not use contractual labels to conceal the worker's true status.

## Required inputs

- Employer entity, employee identity, jurisdiction and work location
- Role, duties, reporting line, start date, status and probation
- Compensation, incentives, equity, benefits, expenses and payroll cycle
- Hours, workplace, travel, remote or hybrid arrangements and leave
- IP, inventions, confidential information, data and equipment needs
- Notice, termination, post-termination restraints and governing law
- Applicable collective agreement, award, policy, template or term sheet

Use bracketed variables for genuinely missing commercial terms and list them in an issues schedule.

## Method

1. **Classify the relationship.** Test employee, worker, contractor, fixed-term, part-time, apprentice and managerial labels against the facts and mandatory law.
2. **Build a compliance matrix.** Check required written particulars, wages, hours, overtime, leave, benefits, social security, probation, deductions, notice and language requirements.
3. **Create a term map.** Reconcile the offer, term sheet, policies, collective terms and prior promises. Identify hierarchy and incorporation by reference.
4. **Draft the operational bargain.** State appointment, duties, authority, place and hours of work, mobility, compensation mechanics, expenses, leave and policy compliance clearly.
5. **Protect legitimate interests.** Define confidential information, permitted use, security, records, return obligations and lawful IP or invention ownership. Preserve statutory creator and moral rights where they cannot be assigned.
6. **Calibrate restraints.** Draft non-solicit, non-dealing, confidentiality, garden-leave or non-compete terms only where lawful, necessary, specific and proportionate. Explain unenforceability risk.
7. **Draft change and exit terms.** Address variation, role changes, suspension, notice, payment in lieu, misconduct, incapacity, redundancy, fixed-term expiry and post-exit obligations without contracting out of mandatory rights.
8. **Run consistency checks.** Verify definitions, dates, cross-references, currency, tax wording, signatures and conflicts with handbook or incentive documents.

## Output

Produce:

- A clean employment agreement with schedules
- An assumptions and open-points list
- A mandatory-law and commercial-risk matrix
- Optional employer-favourable and balanced alternatives for material clauses
- A pre-signing checklist for approvals, notices and attached policies

## Guardrails

- Do not misclassify a worker or use a sham location, salary split or contractor structure to evade rights.
- Do not draft discriminatory terms or permit unlawful deductions, monitoring, restraint or forfeiture.
- Distinguish contractual discretion from an unfettered right; require good faith and lawful process where applicable.
- Treat tax, immigration, benefits, equity and pension language as specialist-review areas.
- Require qualified local counsel to verify mandatory terms and enforceability before signature.