Employment and contractor clauses

Pay and entitlements

Remuneration sets the salary or rate and how it is paid, bonus sets any discretionary or target based payment, and overtime says whether extra hours are paid separately or absorbed into a salary. Superannuation covers the employer's contribution, and leave covers annual, personal and other leave. In Australia most of these sit under the Fair Work Act, the National Employment Standards and any award or enterprise agreement, so the pages say where a clause only restates the minimum and where it can genuinely give more. Read remuneration and overtime together, since a salary that absorbs overtime still has to pass the award test.

Starting, changing and ending

Probation sets a trial period at the start, notice period sets how much warning either side gives to end the job, and garden leave lets an employer keep paying someone while keeping them away from work during that notice. Redundancy covers what happens when a role is no longer needed, including consultation and redundancy pay. Flexible work covers requests to change hours or location, which some employees have a legal right to make. These clauses interact, so a notice period that is shorter than the legal minimum simply does not work.

Restraints and contractors

Non compete, non solicitation and restraint of trade limit what someone can do after leaving, and courts only enforce them to the extent they protect a real business interest for a reasonable time and area. The independent contractor clause is different in kind: it states that a person is not an employee, but the label does not decide the question, which turns on how the relationship actually works. Read that page before hiring a contractor on a long or exclusive arrangement. Each page carries sample wording and variants, and none of it is legal advice.

Every page in this collection

• Abandonment of employment clause: sample and the steps behind it

  An abandonment clause sets the steps when an employee stops turning up and cannot be reached: how many days of unexplained absence trigger it, how the employer will try to make contact, the deadline to reply, and what happens if there is no reply. It gives the employer a fair process to follow, not an automatic end to the job.

• At will employment clause: sample and the state exceptions

  In most of the United States, employment is at will whether or not a document says so. The clause exists less to create that rule than to protect it from offer letters, handbooks and managers' promises that could be read as promising more.

• Bonus clause: discretionary, formula or both

  A bonus promised in an offer and described loosely in a contract is one of the most argued payments at the end of a job. The clause decides whether a departing employee walks away with a pro rata share or with nothing, so the leaver rule matters as much as the target.

• Casual conversion clause under the employee choice pathway

  Australia replaced the old casual conversion rules with the employee choice pathway on 26 August 2024. A casual with at least 6 months' employment, or 12 months with a small business, who believes they no longer fit the casual definition can give written notice to become permanent, and the employer can refuse only on limited grounds.

• Clawback clause: recovering a bonus or commission already paid

  A bonus is paid on the numbers as they stand, and sometimes the numbers change. Clawback is how an employer gets the money back when a sale unwinds or misconduct comes to light, and malus is how it avoids paying in the first place.

• Commission clause: a sales sample and the written plan rules

  A commission clause turns a sale into pay. The rate is the easy part; disputes come from when commission is earned, when it is paid, whether it can be taken back, and what a salesperson gets for deals that close after they leave. New York and California both require commission plans for employees to be in writing.

• Conflict of interest clause: disclose, record and step back

  A conflict of interest is not misconduct in itself; hiding one usually is. The clause turns a vague duty of loyalty into concrete steps: what to disclose, by when, to whom, and what to do next.

• Fixed term clause for an Australian employment contract

  A fixed term clause gives employment a set end date, such as the end of a festival season or a parental leave cover. Since 6 December 2023 the Fair Work Act stops most fixed term contracts running past 2 years, including extensions, or carrying an option to extend more than once, and employers must give the Fixed Term Contract Information Statement.

• Garden leave clause: paid notice away from the business

  When a senior salesperson resigns to join a rival, the last thing the business wants is three more months of client meetings. Garden leave solves that problem, but only cleanly when the contract gave the employer the right to use it.

• Hours of work clause for an Australian employment contract

  An hours of work clause fixes the ordinary hours an employee is paid for and the pattern they are worked in. In Australia the National Employment Standards limit a full time employee to 38 hours a week plus reasonable additional hours, and since 2024 employees also have a right to disconnect outside working hours.

• Independent contractor clause and the test behind it

  Calling someone a contractor is the easy part of a contractor agreement. The clause earns its place only when the terms around it, and the daily reality of the work, point the same way.

• Invention assignment clause: sample and the state limits

  Who owns what an engineer invents? For work done in the job, almost everywhere the answer is the employer. For the side project built on a weekend laptop, several US states say it stays with the employee whatever the contract says, and the clause has to respect that.

• Leave entitlements clause in an employment contract

  Leave is where a contract most often promises something the law already gives, or quietly offers less. A clause that names each entitlement, points to the statutory floor and says what is extra settles most leave disputes before a request is ever refused.

• Mobility clause: UK sample and the limits on using it

  A mobility clause gives an employer flexibility to move staff where the work is. It does not give it freedom to move someone overnight to the other end of the country, and tribunals have long read an implied duty of reasonableness into how it is used.

• Moonlighting clause: second jobs and side work

  Plenty of employees drive rideshare at weekends, tutor in the evenings or run a small business on the side. A moonlighting clause decides which of those an employer needs to know about, and which it can say no to.

• Non compete clause: wording, enforceability and reform

  The live question with a non compete is rarely whether it was signed, but how much of it would survive a challenge. Since September 2026 there is a second question, because draft federal legislation would ban the clause for most workers.

• Non dealing clause: a UK sample and how it differs from a non solicit

  A non dealing covenant goes further than a non solicit: it stops a departing employee accepting work from former clients at all, not just chasing them. UK courts enforce it only where it protects a legitimate interest, such as client connections, and goes no further than reasonably necessary in time and scope.

• Non solicitation clause for clients and staff

  Most businesses worry less about where a departing account manager works next than about which clients and colleagues follow. A well drafted non solicitation clause targets exactly that, which is why it is often the restraint that survives when a broader one fails.

• Notice period clause in an employment contract

  Notice is the clause most people read only on the day they need it. By then its two numbers, what the employer owes and what the employee owes, decide the final pay, the last day and sometimes when a new job can start.

• Overtime clause: paid, time off or built into salary

  A salary that covers reasonable additional hours sounds tidy until a busy quarter pushes those hours past what the award would have paid for. The overtime clause is where that gap is either measured and paid or quietly left to grow.

• Payment in lieu of notice clause (PILON): UK sample and effects

  Sometimes an employer wants someone gone today, not in three months. A PILON clause makes that lawful under the contract, and the difference it makes to restrictive covenants is often worth more than the money.

• Probation period clause in an employment contract

  A probation clause is most useful as a promise to review performance at a set point and say so in writing. It is least useful when someone believes it lets a job end without notice or protection, because neither is true.

• Public holiday clause for an Australian employment contract

  In Australia employees are entitled to be absent on a public holiday, and paid at their base rate for the ordinary hours they would have worked that day. An employer may ask them to work if the request is reasonable, and they may refuse if it is not or their refusal is reasonable. A public holiday clause applies those rules to the employee's own pattern.

• Redundancy clause in an Australian employment contract

  Redundancy is the one ending where both sides agree nobody did anything wrong, which is why the payment and the process carry all the weight. A clause that commits to consultation, redeployment and a clear calculation makes a hard conversation shorter and the result easier to defend.

• Remote work clause: hybrid, fully remote or by request

  Hybrid arrangements agreed over a coffee tend to unravel when a manager changes or the lease on the office does. A clause that names the days, the workspace rules and the notice needed to change them protects the arrangement for both sides.

• Remuneration clause: the pay terms in an employment contract

  Most pay disputes start with one ambiguous word, usually package, inclusive or review. A remuneration clause that states the base figure, what sits on top of it and what a review does and does not promise leaves nothing to interpret on the first pay slip.

• Restraint of trade clause: building a cascade for a business sale

  Australian drafters cannot know in advance which period and area a judge will accept, so they write several and let the court choose. That device, the cascading restraint, is useful, frequently criticised, and now the subject of federal consultation.

• Retention bonus clause: sample wording and repayment rules

  A retention bonus, sometimes called a stay bonus, pays an employee for staying through a critical period. The clause has to answer one question above all: what happens if employment ends before the date. Resignation usually forfeits it, layoff usually pays it, and paying upfront with repayment raises state wage law issues.

• Secondment clause: sample for a three party secondment

  A secondment sends an employee to work for a host organisation for a period while they stay employed by their own employer. The clause, usually in a three party agreement, has to make clear that the employer still employs and pays them, the host directs the day to day work, and the employee comes back to their own role at the end.

• Severance pay clause: a US sample with a release

  In the US no federal law requires severance pay, so a severance clause is what creates the right: who qualifies, how much, how it is paid, and what the employee must sign first. For employees aged 40 or over, a valid release of age claims must follow the timing rules of the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act.

• Social media clause for an employment contract

  A social media clause tells staff what they can and cannot post about their job, the business, its clients and their colleagues, on work accounts and their own. It works best as a short contract term pointing to a fuller policy, and it reaches out of hours posts only where they have a real connection with the employment.

• Summary dismissal clause: serious misconduct in Australia

  Notice is the price of ending employment in Australia, except where the employee's own conduct is serious enough to forfeit it. The clause names that exception; the Fair Work Regulations and the unfair dismissal rules decide whether it was properly used.

• Superannuation clause in an Australian employment contract

  Superannuation clauses written before 1 July 2026 often promise quarterly contributions, a timing that no longer meets the law. A clause that refers to the guarantee rate and the payday deadline, rather than to fixed dates, stays correct when the rules move again.

• Training repayment clause: UK sample with a sliding scale

  Paying for a licence or qualification is an investment an employer wants back if the employee leaves straight away. A repayment clause can do that, but only if it reflects real cost, tapers fairly and is agreed before the course starts.

• Working time opt out clause: the 48 hour week in the UK

  UK law caps the working week at an average of 48 hours, and lets an adult worker sign that cap away. The opt out only works if it is genuinely voluntary, so where and how it is signed matters as much as what it says.