Employment Contract – Full Time or Part Time Casual Employee (Award or Common Law)

Template employment contract (standard terms of employment) for a Full Time or Part Time Employee (either Award or Common Law)

Standard Employment Terms – Full Time or Part Time Employment Contract

What is an employment contract?  

All employees in Australia will have a common law contract of employment (whether written or unwritten) which specifies terms and conditions with their employer. This contract is subject to Australian Government, and in some instances state and territory government, legislative requirements.

An employment contract is an agreement between an employer and employee that sets out terms and conditions of employment. It is advisable that standard terms are confirmed in writing to avoid any doubt between the parties.

Can an employment contract provide for less than the legal minimums?

An employment contract cannot provide for less than the legal minimum set out in:

• the National Employment Standards (NES)
• awards, enterprise agreements or other registered agreements that may apply.

All employees are covered by the NES, regardless of whether they’ve signed an employment contract. An employment contract can’t make employees worse off than their minimum legal entitlements.

What do the standard employment contract terms cover?

The HR Expert standard terms for casual employees (covering Award casual employees and/or common law casual employees) is a useful document to use when hiring new employees.

The employment contract standard terms inform new employees about the terms and conditions of their employment with your business, some of these terms include:

• parties
• employee duties
• probationary employment
• leave (annual, personal/carers, other)
• confidential information
• termination
• abandonment
• suspension
• post-termination obligations
• overpayments
• governing law, and
• definitions

The HR Expert employment contract standard terms are a generic template of terms that can be given to all full time employees covered by an Agreement at your workplace.

The standard terms should be given to your new permanent employees along with a letter of offer (also known as letter of engagement or offer letter). Once you have received the signed standard terms and letter of engagement from the employee, return a copy to them, and keep the original. This ensures you both have a record of what has been agreed.

The letter of engagement will contain specific information, including:

• pay
• hours of work
• shift penalties and loadings (if applicable)
• leave entitlements, and
• notice of termination of employment.

Minimum entitlements can come from a range of sources including industrial instruments (e.g. an award or an enterprise agreement) and legislation, such as the Fair Work Act 2009.

You should use these standard terms, and the information contained within it, at your own discretion and risk. You accept as a condition of your use of HR Expert and the information contained therein that you will make no claim for any loss, damage or expense that may arise from your use of documentation, or your reliance on any of the information contained within it.