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What paperwork does a new employee need to sign?

HiringEmployeesCompliance

A new employee signs an offer letter, a confidentiality and invention assignment agreement, a Form W-4, and Section 1 of Form I-9, and shows you the documents that prove they can work in the United States. Your side is to complete Section 2 of the I-9 within three business days of their first day of paid work, report the hire to your state's new-hire directory within twenty days under federal law, sooner in some states, put them on payroll with income tax withholding, and have workers' compensation insurance in place. If the offer includes equity, the grant documents come separately, after the board approves the grant.

What the employee signs

The offer letter sets out the role, pay, start date, at-will status and any equity promised, and it should say the equity is subject to board approval and the plan. The confidential information and inventions assignment agreement, the CIIAA, assigns to the company what the employee creates in the course of the work and binds them to confidentiality. Have it signed on or before day one; an assignment signed later needs fresh consideration in some states. The W-4 tells you how much to withhold. The I-9 is the one with the hard deadline.

What the company must have

Federal law requires an employer to withhold income tax from wages, so payroll has to exist before the first pay day. Most states require workers' compensation insurance from the first employee, so check yours, and most require registration for unemployment insurance and state withholding. Federal workplace posters, among them the minimum wage, OSHA and polygraph protection notices, must be displayed; the Department of Labor supplies them free and states add their own. The new-hire report carries the employee's name, address and Social Security number and the employer's name, address and EIN.

Keep the signed set together. A missing invention assignment from an early engineer is a diligence finding that costs money to cure.

Arabella's library carries offer letters, with and without equity, and the employee CIIAA, each filled by questionnaire and sent to sign in the app.

Written by the lawyers who built Arabella. This is legal information, not legal advice for your situation, and reading it does not make us your lawyers. For a real dispute or a high-stakes decision, talk to a licensed attorney. More questions.