I Have One Or A Few Employees

I have one or a few employees on the team

Some employment questions coming up? Maybe an employee recently mentioned a law that gives them some rights you weren’t aware of, you have to let go of your first employee, or you are just ready to get some more official documentation in place.

This is NOT the time to try to learn every employment law in existence. Employment law is a vast area with tons of different requirements that vary by industry. It’s an overwhelming sea with waves of new laws coming in every year, and even employers with their own in-house counsel have an almost impossible time knowing everything there is to know about employment law.

This IS usually a sign that it’s a good time to get some paperwork in place, so you have some guidelines to cover most of these situations and get an idea of when to bring in an attorney. The goal of getting this paperwork in place is to provide you with policies that comply with the law. This paperwork will usually take the form of an Employment Agreement and Offer Letter or an Employee Handbook.

Employment Agreement and Offer Letter

We typically recommend an Employment Agreement and Offer Letter if:

Your employee will have some unique scheduling or payment terms and you want to lay those out clearly and make sure they comply with the law, like setting their own schedule or getting paid per session or project instead of hourly;
The employee will be creating materials for your company and you need strong work-for-hire/intellectual property terms to make sure you fully own those materials;
The employee will be getting access to any information that you want to protect, so you can get a confidentiality agreement in place;
You are in a field that requires the employee to maintain a license and/or follow licensing rules, like HIPAA, so you can lay those requirements out in a contract;
The employee will be working directly with long-term clients and you want to consider a non-solicitation agreement or non-competition agreement; or
You want to lay out the terms of the employment generally for the employee in an offer letter.

A well-drafted Employment Agreement and Offer Letter can help:

Ensure at-will employment (if desired)
Prevent common undesired situations, such as having to pay out 2 weeks of vacation time if the employee quits after the first day
Protect confidential information
Make sure your policies comply with the law, like paid leave laws and unusual payment structures
Ensure you can continue to use assets created by the employee, such as materials they put together and videos with their image, after they leave

This is not an exhaustive list, and customization is key because the processes, risks, and liabilities are different for each business. Our first step in every engagement is to send a questionnaire and/or set up a call to discuss your business with you and help us prioritize your biggest concerns or risks for your business. We then work with you to draft templates that you can use for your current employees and reuse for future employees.

Employment Agreement and Offer Letter Templates: $3,450

Employee Handbook

We typically recommend an Employment Handbook if:

You start to get in multiple employees who will interact with each other, so you can set codes of conduct and provide legally required harassment prevention policies;
You have a lot of procedures you want to communicate to your employees, like time tracking, internet policies, dress code, etc. and you want to provide them and make sure they all comply with employment law;
You work in an industry with a lot of policies you need to give your employees, like anything involving food/beverages (for sanitation policies) or physical activity (for safety policies); or
You have a lot of employee turnover and want to have a comprehensive guide for employees to help with onboarding.

A well-drafted Employee Handbook can help:

Compile all of your employment procedures (codes of conduct, reimbursement policies, complaint procedures, etc.) in one easy-to-reference place for employees.
Make sure all of your employment procedures are legally compliant. Some employers unintentionally create policies that violate the law, like policies that deduct from employee paychecks.
Ensure that you can terminate employees when needed by clearly laying out the employment “at-will” status and not binding you to a strict step-by-step disciplinary procedure.
Provide any legally required policies to the employee, such as paid leave and employee safety.
Protect the business from liability. For example, if one employee (or even a client) harasses another employee, the business could be automatically liable unless they have an adequate harassment reporting policy in place.

Again, this is not an exhaustive list, and customization is key because the processes, risks, and liabilities are different for each business. Our first step in every engagement is to send a questionnaire and/or set up a call to discuss your business with you and help us prioritize your biggest concerns or risks for your business. Then we will work with you to put together these policies into an organized handbook that complies with the law and is tailored to your business.

Employee Handbook flat fee:

Employee Handbook Flat fee: $5,175 – $6,900