Deal qualification in employment contracts

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an employment contract is one of the most important documents that you'll sign in your lifetime however many employees don't always properly understand the terms of their employment contract and the employers side careless use of boilerplate templates can undermine the validity of an employment contract on this episode of the employment law minute we're gonna break down employment contracts and how you can protect yourself [Music] welcome to the employment law minute where we talk about common workplace issues and explore practical solutions for both employers and employees I'm your host John Scoles and I'm joined by Ottawa employment lawyer Alex lucha Ferro partner at San firu tamarkan LLP Alex right into this this is probably one of the most important ones we've covered why are employment contracts so important well it's quite simple John employment contracts govern the relationship between employer and employee they dictate what an employee is being paid what their hours are all of that kind of basic stuff that goes to the roots of the employment contract more than that more than those basic terms John what an employment contract could potentially do is it can limit potentially an employee's termination or severance pay it could lemon limit how an employee competes or how an employee could interact with clients of the business after they're let go or after they resigned employment so employment contracts could have those additional terms within them that can even govern the relationship beyond termination and that's why they're so extremely important both to employees and to employers you mentioned severance pay and I assume you're you're leading into a termination clause can an employee still obtain severance if they've signed an employment contract with one of those in it well they can if the termination clause is improperly drafted so what a termination clause does or termination language in an agreement what it does is try to limit an employee to a certain amount of severance now that amount has to be in line with the minimum requirements as per the Ministry of Labor in ance with the Employment Standards Act but it could be potentially more than that as well time and time again John as employment lawyers we see termination language we see termination clauses that written poorly that aren't good enough the law has also changed when it comes to termination clauses so if one was written ten years ago it may not be enforceable now likely isn't enforceable now so you can have a termination clause in your employment contract as an employee but it's only if it's enforceable that you'll be limited to that amount and again time and time again and almost on a regular daily basis John we see termination clauses that are not enforceable that don't effectively limit an employee severance entitlements and if that's the case if that language isn't enforceable an employee is gonna be out severance pay in ance with the common law which means based on their age their position and their years of service so as an employer you you've got to be sure that your employment contracts and your termination clauses are enforceable well I want them ironclad so how do I go about getting one like that right well you need you need advice from us you need to speak with an employment lawyer and make sure that you stay on top of that and and that every every once every couple of years or so your employment contracts are reviewed by employment by an employment lawyer you've got to get that that advice as an employer it's also important when you're introducing that contract or when you're introducing that language you can't just insert the termination language into a policy for example or into a contract that's already established there is a certain protocol to follow when you're introducing new terms like that or introducing new contracts and again if you're having those issues in it as an employer you need to contact us finally non-competition agreements non-solicitation clauses are they enforceable language that we see very often in employment contracts employers love to try and restrict employees from competing or restrict employees from soliciting clients of the business more often than not John that kind of language isn't enforceable it needs to be very very narrowly construed and by that I mean you have to really limit the amount of time that you're restricting competition the geographic location within which you're restricting competition and the type of business that you're restricting the employee from competing unless all three of those things are very very narrowly focused John that kind of language non solicitation or competition language and an agreement is not going to be enforceable lots to take in there Alex but we got it we're gonna leave it there until next time are you experiencing an issue in the workplace contact us now help employment law minute dot CA or 185 5/8 to 150 900 go to employment law minute CA you'll find past episodes of the show resources for employers and employees as well as contact information to help you find practical solutions to workplace problems employment law minute CA thanks for watching we'll catch you next time [Music]