How Do I Choose The Right Worker Agreement?
If you’re looking for an agreement to use when you bring someone onto your team, you are in the right place. We have agreements that are intended for independent contractors and three to use with your employees.
Contractor Agreements
For independent contractors, you’ll want to use a single agreement that covers everything. The agreement should set out the obvious things like the work they’ll perform and how much you’ll pay. Still, you’ll also want to include a clause transferring ownership of the work product to your business and protecting your confidential information.
The Independent Contractor Agreement is the general use agreement for contractors, and it includes all the relevant clauses and options. You can use it for contractors completing a single project (e.g., creating a logo for your business), performing services for a set period of time, or for ongoing engagements. This is a versatile agreement because you’ll define the work they perform in a Statement of Work that you create at the end.
The Virtual Assistant Agreement is a special-purpose contractor agreement for virtual assistants. This agreement will work for assistants who are hired to perform work on an hourly basis or in an ongoing weekly or monthly retainer fashion (e.g., social media virtual assistants who create and post a given number of times for you each week or month). This agreement is not suitable for people you are hiring to complete a single project; use the Independent Contractor Agreement for that.
NOTE: The Virtual Assistant Agreement is only appropriate for cases in which your Virtual Assistant is a contractor, not an employee.
Misclassifying employees as independent contractors can have serious consequences. Generally speaking, if you exert significant control over when a person works and how they perform their work, they must be treated as employees. Similarly, if you demand most of their working time and have an ongoing relationship, they must likely be treated as an employee.
If your Virtual Assistant qualifies as an employee, you should use the Employee Agreements set out below instead.
The Guest Expert Agreement is a special-purpose agreement for guests who serve ongoing roles in your programs. You'll typically use this for guest teachers and guest coaches, but you can use it for any guest expert who serves your clients inside a paid program.
Employee Agreements
When you hire a new employee, you often divide things up into multiple agreements, and our documents are set up with three agreements. Generally speaking, you'll want employees to sign all three of these agreements.
The Employee Offer Letter is intended to set out the basic terms of employment. It includes how much they’ll work (full-time vs. part-time) and how they’ll be paid (salary vs. hourly). This agreement also makes clear that the employee is not getting equity in the company. Believe it or not, that is an important thing to include to avoid disputes. Use this document as the starting place when you want to make a job offer to someone. They’ll countersign to agree.
The Employee Confidentiality Agreement requires your employee to protect your secret sauce. In a nutshell, it says they’ll use the confidential information they learn while working for you only for your business purposes. They can’t use that information if they leave to start their own business or to join a competing company.
The Employee Intellectual Property Transfer Agreement clarifies that your business owns the work product that the employee creates while working for you. While you probably have a good argument that you own the work under certain legal doctrines, it’s better to get a written agreement that resolves any doubt.