Employment Contract – Implied Terms of Employment: Another Reason For One

An Employment Contract – Implied Terms of Employment

An employment contract cannot predict every scenario that will arise in an employment relationship. However, you can anticipate that certain events will take place during most employment relationships.

Predictable Events during the Life of an Employment Relationship

1. At some point, the employer will want to change the employee’s duties.

2. The employee will likely be absent from work because of illness.

3. The employer will want to discipline the employee.

4. The employer will terminate the employee.

Even though these events are predictable, most employers decide not to address them at the beginning of the relationship.

Implied Terms of Employment

If the employee and employer don’t agree on how to address these issues, then the courts will make certain assumptions.

The courts will generally assume the following:

1. An employer has no right to make fundamental changes in an employee’s job duties.

2. A salaried employee is generally entitled to be paid his or her salary when he or she is sick.

3. As far as discipline goes, generally an employer only has the right to provide a verbal warning, a written warning or terminate an employee.

4. An employer is generally required to provide an employee with “reasonable notice of termination”.

These are called implied terms of employment.

Contracting Out of Implied Terms of Employment

An employer can usually contract out of these implied terms of employment in an employment contract. Because of this, we recommend that your employment contract include the following provisions:

1. The employer has the right to change duties with little or no notice.

2. A salaried employee is entitled to a maximum number of sick days.

3. The employer has the right to suspend an employee without pay as a form of discipline.

4. An employer will provide the employee with an agreed-upon amount of notice of termination.

If you have any questions about employment contracts, please call us at 1-888- 640-1728 or send us an email at [email protected]