If employers do not offer their employees a definite term of employment, the presumption is that, absent a clear expression of the intent to form a contract of employment for a fixed period of time, the employer may terminate its employees’ employment “at-will,” or at any time and for any reason or no reason at all, so long as the employee is not terminated for an unlawful reason. Although most employers do not negotiate employment agreements with a majority of their employees as a routine practice, such agreements can be beneficial to both employers and employees.  Employment agreements can be beneficial for all classes of employees, whether executives, managers, or hourly workers. More specifically, executives, by the nature of their specialized education, training, and experience, are more likely to be bound by employment agreements and/or agreements not to compete with their employers.  Negotiating employment agreements with executives can assure employers that their executives will work for them for a predetermined amount of time and that their executives will not compete with them after their employment has ended.  Executives can negotiate their compensation, criteria for raises, bonus structure, and severance payments and take comfort in the knowledge that they will not have to haggle over these important aspects of their employment in the future.