Free draft · no account needed
Create a Appointment Letter
What this document does
The written appointment letter the Code on Wages requires an employer to give every worker — permanent, fixed-term, contract or gig. It states the role and how the engagement is classified, the wages and how they are made up, the working hours, the leave, and the notice period either side must give. Shorter and more widely used than a full employment agreement, which is a negotiated contract for a senior hire.
Letter
Your answers stay in this browser tab until you continue. Free to draft — you only pay when you send it.
Draft · not yet executed
Appointment Letter
0/9 answered
What else is in it — 9 clauses, 2 optional
- 01
Who the letter is from and to
The head of the letter: the place and date it bears, the employer it issues from, and the person it is addressed to. Both are parties who sign, so both come from the party picker rather than being typed into the letter.
- 02
Subject
The one line the letter is filed and found by. Written by the employer rather than composed from the particulars — those live on other clauses, and a clause cannot read another clause's data.
- 03
The appointment
The role, how the engagement is classified, when it starts and where the work is done. The classification is not decoration: the Code on Wages requires a written appointment letter for every worker whatever their classification, and several entitlements — gratuity for fixed-term workers among them — turn on which one applies.
- 04
Wages
What the employee is paid and how it is made up. The components are itemised rather than reduced to a single figure, because the Code on Wages draws consequences from the composition — what counts as wages for provident fund and gratuity is not simply whatever is labelled basic. Nothing here computes a total or checks the split.
- 05
Working hours
The hours of work, the weekly off, and how overtime is treated. Required to be stated in writing, and the clause a dispute about unpaid overtime turns on.
- 06
Leave
The leave the employee is entitled to. Stated as the employer's own entitlement rather than as a statutory figure: leave accrual is governed by the applicable Shops and Establishments Act or the OSH Code, both of which vary, and asserting a number here would be asserting one we have not checked for this establishment.
- 07
Notice period
How much notice either side must give to end the employment. Required to be stated in writing. The figure is the employer's, subject to whatever the applicable labour legislation requires as a minimum for this establishment.
- 08
Acceptance
How the letter closes and what the employee's signature means. Carries no fields — everything it prints comes from the shared context. The employee signs here, which is what makes this an agreement rather than a notification.
- 09
Acceptance
The other side's own words, accepting what the letter offers. Its own clause in an unnumbered section, because it is not a term of the letter and reading as one — indented under the employer's numbered request — is where it was.
After it is drafted
Giving it to the employee, and keeping the file copy
A letter that stays in the HR system has not been issued. The employee needs their copy for the things other people will ask them to prove — a next employer, a bank, a consulate, a provident fund office — and the employer needs an acknowledged copy on file, because the acknowledgement is what answers a later claim that nothing was ever received. Email with the signed PDF attached does both jobs where the employee has a working address.
Provident fund and insurance enrolment
Where the establishment is covered, enrolling a new employee for provident fund and employees' state insurance is the employer's obligation rather than the employee's, and coverage turns on thresholds — headcount and wages — that are worth checking against this appointment rather than assumed from the last one. Enrolment is generally done at joining rather than at the first payroll run, because contributions run from the date of joining either way.
Where confidentiality and non-solicit terms go
Restrictive covenants are deliberately absent from this letter. A term restraining someone from exercising a lawful profession is void under s. 27 of the Contract Act, and what survives — confidentiality, non-solicitation, terms operating during the employment — belongs in an agreement written for it rather than folded into an appointment letter that has to be issued to everyone. Where the role needs them, that is a separate document.