How to Change an Employment Agreement Letter
An employment agreement letter is a letter offering to hire you for a job that spells out the terms---a job contract in letter form. Once you sign and return it, you're bound by the terms as you would be with any other contract. If you don't like the details of the job offer---the salary, benefits, length of time the contract lasts---you can attempt to negotiate changes to the employment agreement, just as if the employer had offered you a regular contract to sign.
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Instructions
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Changing The Letter
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Read the letter over carefully to make sure you know what the company is offering and what it expects from you. Attorney Bernie Dietz says a written agreement should specify the position you're being hired for; the salary and benefits; whether you're guaranteed work for a set period of time or can be fired "at will"; and the responsibilities of both parties with regard to the work to be done and the work environment. If the company made you verbal promises, make sure they're put in writing in the agreement.
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Make a list of what parts of the employment agreement letter you'd like to change: more money, more vacation, a larger staff or your legal liability as a company representative. If you were promised something that's not in the agreement, put that on your list, too. Then decide which changes are absolutely essential and which ones would be nice, but you can live without them.
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Negotiate. Contracts attorney James D. Wall told the New England Journal of Medicine that an employment agreement is a business proposition in which both sides expect to profit. The company may not agree to your proposed changes, but you're fully entitled to ask for them, and to refuse to sign if the employer refuses to change terms you can't accept.
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Read over the revised letter after negotiations are finished. Make sure that any agreed-on changes made it into the revised employment agreement before you sign.
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Tips & Warnings
The New England Journal of Medicine warns not to do anything irreversible---move, quit their old job---before you've received and signed your employment agreement. That way, if it turns out to be unacceptable, or the company changes its mind, you can continue in your current situation.
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