Employment contract template
Hire without rebuilding the paperwork every time. goHeather asks about the role, the pay and where the person will actually work, then writes the employment agreement around those answers and explains each clause before you send it.
Any country or jurisdiction you tell it- Built for wherever the employee works
- Pay, duties and exit terms in one document
- Every clause explained as you go
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What is a Employment Agreement?
The written terms of the job, agreed before day one
An employment agreement sets out what someone is hired to do, what they are paid, and what each side expects while the job runs and when it ends. It is the document you reach for when there is ever a question about a bonus, a customer list or a piece of code.It is not the same as an offer letter. An offer letter is short and confirms the headline terms so a candidate can accept. The employment agreement is the full document, and it is where confidentiality, ownership of work and post-employment obligations actually live.Some roles need one more than others. Anyone who will create intellectual property, hold customer relationships or see commercially sensitive information is usually the clearest case for having it signed before the first day rather than after.
What often goes wrong in a employment contract
Patterns that come up again and again, and how goHeather handles them.
Reusing last year's contract
- The same agreement goes to every hire regardless of where they actually work
- The IP clause has no carve-out, and the first technical hire asks about it
- A sales hire is marked exempt because everyone else is, without anyone checking the duties
- At-will status is stated in one clause and quietly contradicted in another
- Governing law points at head office rather than where the person sits
Building it with goHeather
- goHeather asks which state the employee works in and builds to that answer
- The personal-project carve-out is raised rather than left out by default
- Exempt and non-exempt is a question you answer, with the consequences explained
- At-will language is checked against the rest of the document for conflicts
- Every clause comes with a plain-English summary before the offer goes out
From blank page to signed employment contract
goHeather is not a template download. It is a contract builder that walks you through the document, powered by the latest AI models.
- Start
Start from scratch or from a template
Describe the deal in your own words, or pick a Employment Agreement template and work from there. Either way goHeather builds the document with you rather than handing you a file to fill in.
- Answer
Answer questions as it drafts
goHeather asks who the parties are, what the deal covers and where you operate, and writes each clause around your answers as you go.
- Review
See every clause explained
Each clause comes with a plain-English summary of what it does, so you know what the document says before you send it.
- Negotiate
Check what comes back
Upload the other side’s edits and goHeather shows each change against the version you sent, flagged by risk.
- Sign
Send it for signature
Collect e-signatures and keep the executed copy, the key dates and the renewal terms in one place.
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Enterprise-grade security controls
Who needs a Employment Agreement
Where this document usually shows up, and what else goHeather covers there.
- HR
Every hire, on consistent paper
Build from your own approved template so the terms match from one hire to the next, and the wording does not drift as the team grows.
See contract AI for HR teams
- Founders
Your first employees
The first ten hires are the ones whose agreements get read most closely in a future diligence process. Worth getting on paper properly.
See contract AI for founders - Technology
Engineers and product hires
Software companies care most about who owns the code. Build the agreement with the ownership terms visible rather than buried.
See contract AI for technology companies - Compare
Check a candidate's redlines
When a candidate or their attorney sends the agreement back marked up, compare it against what you sent and see each change in one list.
Compare two versions of a document
Your contracts stay yours
A Employment Agreement carries names, numbers and terms you would not want shared. goHeather protects every document you draft or upload with enterprise-grade controls, end-to-end encryption and trusted AI providers.
Learn more about security
Contracts encrypted with gold-standard protection- Database provider meets bank-grade security
- Your documents and data will never be sold
- We do not use your data to train our models
Building an employment agreement with goHeather
goHeather is a technology company, not a law firm, and this page is not legal advice. It describes what our software does. Nothing here states the law or tells you what your contract needs — for that, talk to an attorney licensed where you operate.
An employment agreement does most of its work years after it is signed, in a conversation nobody expected to have. The sections below cover what goHeather asks while it builds one, what it flags in an agreement that comes back marked up, and how it keeps the paperwork consistent as you hire more people.
What goHeather covers in a Employment Agreement
These are the parts of a Employment Agreement goHeather asks you about while it builds one, and the parts it looks at when you upload one somebody else sent. It is a description of what the product does — not a checklist for your document, and not a view on what yours needs.
- Position and duties. The role, who the person reports to, and whether the job is full time and exclusive. goHeather flags: duties written so broadly that they cover anything at all, so you can see how much the role could change without anyone renegotiating.
- At-will employment. Confirms that either side can end the relationship, and on what terms. goHeather flags: other clauses in the same document that pull against this one, such as a fixed period or a discipline procedure written like a promise.
- Compensation and classification. Salary or hourly rate, pay frequency, and whether the role is treated as exempt or non-exempt from overtime. goHeather flags: a classification that does not sit easily with the duties described elsewhere in the document, so you can check it before it is relied on.
- Bonus, commission and equity. How variable pay is earned, when it is paid, and what happens to unpaid amounts if the person leaves first. goHeather flags: variable pay described as an entitlement with no conditions attached, which is one of the most common sources of disagreement at an exit.
- Confidentiality. What the employee agrees to keep private during the job and after it ends. goHeather flags: confidentiality drafted so widely it would cover ordinary skills and experience, which tends to make the clause harder to rely on in practice.
- Intellectual property. Who owns the work the employee creates on the job. goHeather flags: the absence of a carve-out for personal projects built on the employee's own time and equipment, which goHeather raises for you to consider.
- Restrictive covenants. Any agreement about competing, or approaching customers and colleagues, after the job ends. goHeather flags: a covenant written for a different location from the one you told goHeather the employee works in, with a narrower alternative shown beside it.
- Termination and final pay. Notice, any severance, return of property, and when the last paycheck is issued. goHeather flags: final-pay timing left vague, since the practical answer depends on where the person works and is worth settling before you need it.
- Governing law and disputes. Which state's law the parties choose and how a disagreement would be handled. goHeather flags: a governing law clause pointing somewhere the employee has no connection to, so you can raise it with counsel rather than discover it later.
The answers that shape the agreement
goHeather starts with the things that change the document most, rather than with a form. Where will this person actually work? What is the role, and who do they report to? Is the pay a salary or an hourly rate, and is the role being treated as exempt or non-exempt? Is there commission, a bonus or equity on top?
Then it asks about the parts people forget until they matter. Will this person create anything the business needs to own? Will they hold customer relationships? Do you want anything to apply after they leave, and if so, what kind of thing?
Each answer changes the draft in front of you, and each clause arrives with a plain-English summary of what it does. You are not filling in a template and hoping it fits — you are watching the document get built and being told what each part means while it happens.
- Where the employee will actually work
- The role, the reporting line and whether it is full time
- Pay, frequency, and how any variable pay is earned
- Whether the person will create work the business needs to own
- What, if anything, you want to apply after they leave
The problem that shows up around the tenth hire
Early on, every contract is written by whoever is closest to the hire. By the tenth one there are four versions in circulation, two of them edited in Word by a hiring manager, and nobody is quite sure which is current.
That is the point at which businesses usually come looking for something better, because the inconsistency is what causes the trouble later. Two people doing the same job have different terms. One agreement has an ownership clause and another does not. A term that was fine for a contractor in one state got copied into an agreement for an employee somewhere else.
goHeather builds each agreement from the same starting point, asks the same questions, and keeps every executed copy in one place. When you hire the next account executive, it starts from what you agreed for the last one rather than from whatever file was nearest.
What goHeather does with a candidate's redlines
Senior candidates, and anyone with an attorney, send the agreement back with changes. That is normal, and it is also where small edits slip through unnoticed because the document is eleven pages and the change is one clause.
Upload the marked-up version and goHeather compares it against what you sent. It lists every change — what moved, what was deleted, what was quietly added — flags the ones that shift the deal most, and explains what each one does in plain English.
You accept the changes you are happy with, push back on the ones you are not, and send it on. What goHeather does not do is tell you whether a change is acceptable. That is a commercial and legal judgment, and on a senior hire it is worth putting in front of an employment attorney.
Where the agreement lives once the person starts
The offer letter, the employment agreement, the IP assignment and whatever was signed on the first day tend to end up in four different places — an inbox, a shared drive, an HR system and somebody's desk drawer.
goHeather keeps them together against the person they relate to, so when a question comes up two years later you are reading the actual signed document rather than reconstructing it. Key dates and terms are visible without opening the file.
That matters most at the exit, which is exactly when nobody can find anything. Whatever was agreed at the start is what governs the conversation at the end, and it is worth being able to produce it.
Why goHeather asks where the employee works
Employment paperwork is the area where location matters most. What businesses put in an employment agreement in one state is not what they put in another, the picture shifts as legislatures revisit it, and an agreement copied from a company elsewhere can carry terms that do not fit. goHeather does not ask you to keep track of any of that. It asks where the employee will actually work — not where the company is incorporated — and builds the document to that answer, flagging clauses that look like they came from somewhere else. Where a term is genuinely a judgment call, it tells you so rather than deciding for you. For a view on how any of it applies to your business, talk to an employment attorney licensed where your people are.
Before you go. goHeather is a technology company, not a law firm. We do not provide legal advice, legal opinions, or any view on whether a contract or a clause will hold up. Everything above describes what our software does when you build or upload a document. Rules differ from state to state and change over time, and what is right for your business depends on facts we do not have. Have an attorney licensed where you operate review anything that matters.
Other contracts goHeather builds
goHeather drafts any business contract. These are the ones that usually travel with this one.
- Hiring
Employment Offer Letter template
Confirm the headline terms so a candidate can accept, without promising more than you meant to.
See the offer letter template - Freelance
Independent Contractor Agreement template
Engage a freelancer or agency on clear terms: scope, pay and who owns what gets made.
See the contractor agreement template - Exits
Severance and Release Agreement template
End the employment relationship cleanly: what is paid, what is released, and what each side may say afterwards.
See the severance agreement template
Need a different contract?
goHeather drafts any business contract, not just the ones listed here. Browse every template or start from a blank brief.
employment contract template questions
What people ask before they build a Employment Agreement.
Still have questions?
Build a employment contract and see what goHeather produces, or book a short demo and we will go through one of your own documents with you.
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Build an employment agreement for the state your employee actually works in, or upload the one you use today and see what goHeather flags.
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