Must-have Clauses In Employment Contract

[Yoyo777]

Sometime ago I posted a thread about how far an employer should take care of an employee - talked about legal and moral obligations an employer is faced with. (by the way, she never mentioned the hospital fee again! but I felt a little bit alerted when she told me yesterday: "I think my son has a Dengue Fever, too"!!!!).

It made me realise that there are many more things to watch out if you are a business owner. Especially in the most fundamental area - an employment contract! Forgive me if this kind of thread exists (I'm still a newbie!)

I was going through our employment contracts and my god, they are soooooooooo vaguely written! My partner tells me that it was given by our job agency as a standard contract, to which they had an English translation. I guess they are good for employees, but not necessarily advantageous to employers like us! I mean, I don't want to tie my staff to all the small legal obligations, but on the other hand, you can still take some precaution to save unnecessary (and could be painful) expenses in the future, should any employee want to part from you & try to get as much money as they can.

So here is the question: what would be the must-have clause/common practice we should know about in order to avoid unpleasant consequences? From what I have gathered from various sources so far (so please do correct me if I am wrong), these points are beneficial to employers:

1. A new employee will only get a job if she/he is ready to sign a notice of termination without a date at the same time as signing an employment contract (a friend of ours, who own a factory swears that it is a common thing to do - but doesn't sound so .... legal? ). This means when they get fired, there is no notice of termination, you are immediately terminated without any further pay! Has anyone seen such a practice?

What is the legal term of termination in Thailand anyways? 30 days? Because it was not stipulated in our "standard contract" at all. I've read it somewhere that you give 30 days of notice, but the employee is also entitled to the next month salary. Can someone confirm this?

2. You renew the contract on a yearly basis, but always with one day break in order to break the continuity for the purpose of calculating appropriate severance cost. Is this really sufficient to break the continuity? or does the Court look at it in a larger picture when they assess the case?

3. You pay your employees on an hourly/daily basis, so if they do not come to work, they do not get paid. However they are entitled to 30 days of paid sick leave.

If you have any other tips, I would be grateful And I also look forward to hearing a thrilling conspiracy theory against Farang business owners showing up in this thread