As you hire in new countries, clear and comprehensive employment contracts are a must. Contracts protect everyone: your company, employees, and the legal entity that hires them. They serve as the foundation for a healthy working relationship, outlining everyone's rights, responsibilities, and expectations from the start.

As a general requirement, most countries require the following information to be included in an employment contract. Plane will collect the following information from you when you add the employee:

It's important to consider several key factors and tailor your agreements to each country's specific requirements. Some of these factors may include local labor laws, minimum wage regulations, working hours, leave policies, intellectual property rights, and more. It minimizes the risk of misunderstandings and sets the stage for a mutually beneficial, legally compliant working relationship by addressing these crucial employment terms in the contract.

Plane ensures that all our contracts are localized and compliant with applicable labor laws, so you can rest assured that all legal terms are in order. Here's what else you need to know about employment contracts created through Plane.

Probationary or trial periods are generally allowed in most countries, typically lasting 3 to 6 months. If you've never worked with an employee previously, it may be a good idea to include a probationary period in your contract to make sure that the situation is a great fit for everyone. However, some countries, like Chile and Belgium, don't allow probationary periods; you can check with our team first.

If you'd like to include a probationary period in an employment contract, just email support@plane.com during the onboarding process to let us know.

Employee compensation often goes beyond a monthly salary. If you want to offer additional monetary incentives as part of your compensation package, you can detail these incentives in the "Additional Incentives" onboarding task when adding an employee to Plane.

Common incentives we can include in your employment contract:

Some countries have a mandatory work-from-home allowance for employees who work fully remotely. It will be included in the contract if it's required.

We cannot include variable compensation in the employment contract, as we don't manage the employee's performance directly. You can have a separate agreement explaining the relationship between Plane, Plane's hiring partner, and you, and include any other variable compensation, such as bonuses, commission, or equity.

In certain countries, most commonly in Europe and Latin America, a 13th-month salary or bonus is mandatory. These are typically paid in December and considered a Christmas bonus. Additionally, some countries require employers to pay a holiday bonus to employees when they take paid time off—often referred to as a 14th-month salary or bonus. You will see the option to include the 13th- and 14th-month salaries in addition to the base salary during onboarding.

Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) govern requirements in certain countries. As part of the CBA, employers may be required to provide guaranteed annual raises, pay for an employee's supplemental healthcare, or pay for an employee's life insurance policy. Our team will communicate if any of these requirements apply to you during onboarding.

Depending on the country, employees are guaranteed certain amounts of paid time off and paid sick leave by law. If you wish to align paid time off amounts more closely with your internal policies, we can always offer vacation and sick leave policies that are more generous than those guaranteed by law. Please just let our onboarding team know by emailing support@plane.com.

By law, employees in different countries are guaranteed certain rights and benefits, such as maternity and paternity leave, healthcare, and pension contributions. You can make changes to these so long as the changes are more generous than the minimum requirements guaranteed by law.

I have a template contract that our company uses for our hires in the United States. Can you adapt that for our international employees?

No. Labor laws vary by country, so we will need to use our locally compliant contract for the jurisdiction in which you are hiring.

Can I add a reference to our IP agreement?

Upon request, we can provide a direct IP agreement that flows intellectual property back to you, where the flow of IP is Employee → Local Entity → Client. Read more about this here or contact us at support@plane.com for more information.

Can I make changes to the employment contract?

Yes, to a certain extent. You can increase the number of vacation days, change the length of the probationary period, or offer additional sick days to more closely align with your company's policies — as long as the adjustments meet or exceed the minimum statutory requirements of the country in which you are hiring.

For textual changes (e.g., adding/removing clauses, adjusting the wording of existing clauses, etc.), all changes must be approved by our legal team for compliance and are subject to additional fees. We cannot guarantee that any requested changes will be accepted.

I included the employee's stock options when onboarding them in Plane, but I don't see them in the employment contract. Did you forget to include them?

This was not an oversight. We intentionally don't make any reference in writing to stock options, as they are issued by your company directly and not by our entity with which your employee has an employment contract. Most stock purchase agreements are already optimized for paying anyone who performs services for your company, so you can continue to grant options through whichever cap table management software you use.

Additionally, we cannot include commission or incentive plans in employment contracts. However, you can provide the employee with a separate agreement outlining the terms of the plan(s).

We're here to help! You can find more of our guides here, or reach out to us at support@plane.com or use Plane's in-app chat.