Does an employment agreement need a signature?
Does an employee need to sign an employment contract? It is a good question and one that we get very now and then at Worknice.
In Australia, there are no specific rules around the way a contract of employment needs to be accepted. Basically, there just needs to be sufficient indication from an employee that they did in fact accept it.
This could be done by signing a piece of paper, clicking an “I accept” button, replying in an email with “I accept” or even starting work could be an indication of acceptance if you can show that the employee received it.
Having said that, if acceptance ever becomes an issue, it’s going to be easier the clearer the acceptance is. So it’s good to collect identifiers and the date of signing so you have a record of it and can prove when they signed it and that it was them. There’s no minimum – you just need to think about what you would need to be able to prove that they signed it.
Manage contract acceptance easily in Worknice
Worknice document technology has a number of tools to ensure employees see, read and accept their contract – in a variety of ways. E-signtures and acknowledgements are most popular!
Do you need to get a date of acceptance?
There’s no strict requirement to have the date on the document if you have it somewhere else. But it’s probably convenient to have it in the document because if lawyers need to look at it it will all be in one place.
Does every page of an employment contract need to be initialled?
There’s no requirement to have every page initialed.
It is, however, good to require the employee to scroll through the contract before being able to accept it. This way, you can show that they had access to the whole contract before clicking accept.
Does the contract need to be signed by the business?
In terms of the company signature, this depends on the company. Some companies have rules about who can sign documents, which would need to be followed. If they don’t have these rules, then it could just be signed by someone who has authority to do so, which would normally be a CEO or HR manager, for instance. There’s no generally requirement to have more than one signature, unless there are specifically company rules that require it.
