Policies, Contracts & Forms

Attorney-reviewed employment policies, contracts,
and forms that ensure employers comply with the
law and protect their business.

Businesses must maintain certain contracts, notices, and forms in order to comply with federal and state laws. But employers must also have proper agreements in place to protect their business from lawsuits. Forework provides strategic and compliant employment documents for businesses.

Contracts

Whether an employer is hiring a new employee, a new executive, or needs confidentiality and a nonsolicitation agreement to protect its client lists and trade secrets, Forework can help. Forework provides:

  • Employment contracts
  • Employment offer letters (exempt and non-exempt)
  • Commissioned salesperson contracts
  • Bonus agreements
  • Independent contractor agreements
  • Nonsolicitation agreements
  • Outside salesperson employment agreement
  • Arbitration agreements with a class action waiver
  • Rejection letters for interviewed candidate
  • Nondisclosure/confidentiality agreements
  • Severance agreements and releases
  • Termination letters
  • Last chance agreements

Policies

Employers often need assistance with updating their policies and procedures, preparing an employee handbook, or modifying existing policies that need to be edited due to legal changes. With constant federal, state, and city/local changes, there’s always something happening in the world of employment law that requires the employer to modify its policies and procedures. That’s where Forework comes in! We provide clients with a starter employee handbook and any individual policies that the employer might need later on.

Individual policies are also available for purchase and download on our website. As an example, Forework offers:

  • Federal Family and Medical Leave Policy
  • State-specific paid family leave policies (such as those for NY, CA)
  • Paid Sick Leave Law Policies
  • Vacation Time Policy
  • Wage Parity Policy (for NY’s home care providers)
  • Clock-in and Clock-out Policy
  • Recordkeeping Policy
  • Vaccination Policies
  • Teleworking Policies
  • Social Media Policies
  • Drug-Testing Policies
  • Code of Conduct Policies

Posters and Notices

Forework provides new employers with a complete package of employment posters and notices that must be displayed in their workplace, along with an annual update to any poster that may be required by federal or state law. For example, many states require employers to display the minimum wage notice and, when the minimum wage changes, Forework will alert employers to this fact and provide an updated new minimum wage poster, to ensure the employer is always in compliance!

For businesses that need assistance with customizing any of the policies and forms available on Forework’s website, please use Forework OnDemand to speak to one of our employment attorneys or human resources consultants.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, some policies are mandatory, depending on the size of the employer and location of the workers.

This depends on the size of the employer, the location of the employer, and the location of employees working for the employer. For these reasons, there are rarely cookie-cutter handbooks and policy/procedure manuals.

An employee handbook can be a valuable communication resource for both the employer and the employee. It provides guidance and information related to the organization’s history, policies, procedures and benefits in a written format. It is also viewed as a means of protecting the employer against discrimination or unfair treatment claims. It is an easily accessible guide to the company’s policies and practices as well as an overview of the expectations of management.

Once a new policy has been written and adopted by the company, it must be issued to the employees. In some cases, government regulations require that the employer maintain proof that the employee received the policy but in most cases, this is not mandatory. As a best practice, however, even when not mandatory, employers should keep some documentary proof that the employee received the new policy. It will be much easier to enforce the policy against the employee later if there is evidence that the employee has received it. Due to practical challenges we have heard from employers over the years, Forework has automated this process! For our payroll customers, Forework is able to email and text thousands of updates and links to new policies to employees. We then maintain the documentary proof of receipt for you. If you don’t use Forework’s system, however, you can distribute a policy through your intra website, a mass-email, or by intra-office mail. Collecting the signatures and acknowledgments, however, can be time-consuming. Depending on the policy, employers should also consider drafting a cover memo or message to explain to employees the reasons of the new policy and key terms of the new policy.

In some states, yes. There is currently no federal mandate to provide paid time off, such as vacation time, to employees. However, to the extent an employer provides vacation time, some states require the employer to explain the terms and conditions for receiving, using, and payout of unused vacation time in writing. New York, for example, requires an employer to pay departing employees their accrued and unused time, unless the employer has unequivocally stated, in writing, that accrued and unused time will be forfeited upon termination of employment. For this reason, it is important for employers to have clearly communicated paid time off policies.

Generally speaking, there is no statutory mandate to offer employment in a written document to a new hire. However, an offer letter is a powerful tool for an employee who seeks to establish clear terms and conditions of employment for any hire. The offer letter can confirm hours of work and title of the position, job location, pay rate(s), reaffirm the at-will status, set forth confidentiality and noncompetition requirements, and reinforce that the offer of employment is contingent on certain requirements (e.g., drug test).

It depends on the law at issue. Some laws that require employers to post notices will specifically identify the fine associated with the missing poster. In other cases, however, the government agency requiring the posting will make an inference of violations and unlawful conduct in conjunction with an ongoing audit or investigation. For example, in a sexual harassment investigation, the lack of a proper poster may be an additional allegation against the employer that the employer is violating anti-harassment laws.

For employers that have protectable information they are giving to their employee(s), a noncompetition and/or nonsolicitation agreement is a powerful tool. Initially, the agreement will establish that during the course of the employee’s employment, the employee must devote his/her time and best efforts exclusively to the business of the employer. Perhaps equally importantly, such an agreement protects the employer from a valuable employee leaving the employer and competing with the employer later on, by working for a competitor or using the employer’s trade secrets, client lists, and client information. In most states, courts will not infer that an employee is prohibited from competing against his or her former employer. Thus, a written agreement is necessary to enforce the employer’s rights.

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