Business Documents You Should Include with the Employment Contract

It’s not enough to just tell your eCommerce employees that they’re hired and then explain to them their duties. E commerce employees are the most likely employees to be hired as at will employees with no further  legal requirements spelled out at the time of their hiring. This can lead to a number of problems, and it may result in future conflicts as well as losses of legal action.  In this day and age, it’s necessary to make sure your employees understand how you expect them to behave. To make these documents most effective, some need to be binding agreements whereas others are just guidelines.
Confidentiality Agreement
About ten years ago, employers preferred to have their employees sign non competition agreements. However, as the years have passed, judges and state legislatures have made enforcing such contracts increasingly difficult. The reason employers sought such protection revolved primarily around protecting confidential information. To gain this same protection, your best option is to have all your employees sign confidentiality agreements.
The confidentiality agreement can require a number of things. It does not just have to focus on trade secrets. You can make everything that pertains to the running of your business and that is not disclosed to the general public confidential. It should be a combination of specific things such as maintaining confidentiality for all matters relating to online business accounting to general principles such as not disclosing your eCommerce wholesale distributors and clients. This agreement must be binding to be effective.
Code of Conduct
The Code of Conduct provides a general overview of how employees are expected to behave. It includes both specific and general policies relating to ethical and moral issues. In some cases, it details how obvious things like the way breaking the law violates company policy. In others, it provides information on the chain of command and how disputes should be settled. The Code of Conduct does not necessarily have to be binding, although it is most effective if it is. If you decide to make it binding, you should make sure that they sign it on each page. Even if this is not set up as an official contract though, it can still protect you because it demonstrates to the court your requested conduct.
Alternative Dispute Resolution Agreement
One of the latest trends in business law is to include a separate alternative dispute resolution agreement for all disputes relating to employment. While this will not prevent the employee from filing federal charges against you in certain situations, it at least requires that all disputes pass through initial alternative dispute resolution. Arbitration generally works most in the employer’s favor.
You can opt between binding and non binding arbitration. Binding arbitration results in a holding that has the effect of a judge’s ruling. You can require binding arbitration for all matters that are not otherwise prohibited by federal law. In general, this means that you can only have non binding arbitration for issues such as sexual harassment and employment discrimination.