The spine — eight clauses every contract needs
Position, compensation, hours, leave, confidentiality, IP assignment, termination, governing law. These eight clauses are the spine of any defensible employment contract. Anything beyond them should justify its presence.
Position covers title, reporting line, location, work pattern, start date. Compensation covers base, variable, benefits. Hours covers ordinary hours and overtime treatment. Leave covers annual, personal, parental, and statutory minimums. Each clause should be one short paragraph — if it's longer, ask why.
Jurisdiction is the through-line
The same role described in a US contract and an AU contract requires different leave clauses, different at-will or ongoing-employment language, and different long-service-leave treatment. The contract has to know which jurisdiction it applies to.
Where you operate in multiple jurisdictions, maintain one contract per jurisdiction. Trying to write a single 'global' contract produces a document that is bad in every jurisdiction at once. Pay the cost of variants up front; recover it many times over in the next compliance audit.
What to leave out
Don't try to define everything. Aspirational culture language, dress code, social-media policy, leave-process detail — these belong in the handbook, not the contract. The contract is the operative legal document; the handbook is the operational reference. Keeping them separate makes both easier to update.
Don't bury restrictive covenants in the contract. Non-compete, non-solicit, and IP assignment can live in separate signed documents that the contract references. Separation makes each clause easier to defend if one is challenged.
Don't write clauses you can't enforce. Overbroad non-competes are not just unenforceable in many jurisdictions — they're a signal of bad drafting that weakens the rest of the document. Less, done well.
The offer letter is the headline; the contract is the operative document
In most US workplaces the offer letter doubles as the operative document; in AU practice the offer letter and the contract are usually separate. Either approach works; what matters is that everyone knows which document is which.
If you separate them, the offer letter is short — title, comp, start date, headline terms, acceptance deadline. The contract carries the operative legal weight. If you combine them, the offer letter is longer and signed at acceptance; the contract is the offer letter itself.