Contract, Terms and Conditions

Terms and conditions of employment are the elements of a contract which help to define the relation between an employer and an employee. When you consider sending your employees on a time-limited assignment to another country, the employment terms and conditions can vary depending on the exact circumstances of your transfer. For example, a long-term assignment contract will contain more elements than a short-term assignment contract.

Providing detailed information of policy and communicating the terms and conditions in the Assignment contract to the Assignees will become essential part of managing your international assignee population. When designing an assignment contract, it is important that companies carefully consider several factors:

Type of the assignment

There are several different types of assignment contracts and these will determine what the employment obligations will be;

• Long-term expat packages: benefits for expats on a long-term contract include a housing allowance, travel allowance, holiday entitlement, spousal support, a net assignment salary and usually a tax protection or tax equalization technique to protect the assignee from any adverse tax effects on the assignment related income.
• Short-term expat packages: These contracts are for people working abroad on a short contract of six months or less. Similar to the long-term packages, but usually benefits are limited due to the fact that duration is shorter and families don't join the assignee to the foreign country.

Contract duration and termination notice

It is of utmost importance that both contractual parties agree and understand the duration of the assignment and the type of contract you are signing, as this will impact the terms and conditions of your relationship.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

There is simply no such thing as a standard expatriate contract that can be implemented in any country. Your company needs to identify and understand the law and jurisdiction that may apply to your assignment contracts and assignment compensation packages. Any international contract will need to take into consideration the applicable law contractual terms and conditions are governed by. This could be;

• local law in the country you will be employed in,
• the law of the home country from which you relocated,
• the law of the country in which your employer is incorporated

The appropriate choice of law will be based on your company structure and your company’s relationship with the host country company.

Click here to contact KICHANS for a quick review of your needs and how we can work together to design/review your international assignment agreement.