Employment letters HR commonly issues

Indian offices commonly issue a small set of employment letters across a person’s time in the company: offer, appointment, confirmation, promotion or raise, transfer, and relieving or experience. That list is company practice, not a legally prescribed packing list for every employer. This page is a catalog of those operational types so HR files the right object at the right event. It is not a library of legal templates, not statutory wording, and not legal advice. Product home: Dayzen employee lifecycle, which includes employment letter templates. Offer merge fields — name, role, CTC, joining date — stay on offer letter variables. Do not treat this catalog as a second token guide, a second appointment statute, or a substitute for counsel on what a particular letter must contain.

Letters fail in the same way records fail: two PDFs disagree with the employee row. A promotion letter that still shows last year’s designation, an experience letter dated before LWD, an offer that never became an appointment on the same identity — each is a filing problem, not a “more official font.” Templates help only if they print the event you already recorded.

Practice versus prescribed

Some documents exist because your process needs a dated, signed snapshot of an employment event. Some documents exist because a regulator, a bank, a visa post, or a later employer asks for a named paper. Those are not the same reason. This article will not tell you which letters the law requires every Indian employer to issue. That may depend on applicable law, contract, policy, establishment type, or company practice. Verify with your HR, legal, or SME team.

Operationally, treat three layers:

1. The employment event — hired, confirmed, promoted, transferred, last working date approved. Lifecycle owns the event.
2. The letter — a human-readable snapshot of that event, generated from a template, filed against the same employee ID.
3. External use — the employee later shows the PDF to a bank or a next employer. That use does not make the PDF the system of record. If the letter and the row disagree, fix the row and reissue; do not let a pretty PDF become a parallel truth.

Dayzen lifecycle includes employment letter templates so the snapshot can be generated from the record rather than a one-off Word file. That is not a claim the templates are legally sufficient for every clause. Counsel owns statutory and contractual language. Offer tokens stay on the recruitment sibling. Other types still need a source field (new designation, effective date, LWD), not a blank page.

Offer letter

An offer is a pre-employment proposal: this person, this role, the pay facts you chose to state, joining date, entity. It often exists before the employee row. It is not an appointment letter, even when paragraphs are reused. This catalog will not list placeholders — named variables live on the offer-variables article. Once accepted, facts must land on onboarding and the employment record. If joining date or CTC changes, revise the record and the snapshot; do not red-pen a PDF that never flows back. Do not call an offer an appointment because it looked official. Recruitment generates the offer from tokens. Lifecycle owns later letters after they are an employee.

Appointment letter

An appointment letter is commonly the document that states employment has begun (or will begin on a named date) with the employer named, the role, and the terms you chose to put in writing — including, in many practices, notice language and probation if you use it. It is still company practice on this page, not a form this article declares legally mandatory for every shop.

Operational rules that keep appointment letters from poisoning later files:

• One employee ID. Do not appoint a nickname and later create a “real” employee for payroll.
• Effective date that payroll and attendance can read. Mid-month joiners are a proration problem for payroll, not a reason to back-date the letter after the first punch.
• Entity name matching who actually employs them, when you have more than one company in the group.
• Version of the template you used, so a later clause change does not silently rewrite history for people already appointed.

If intern, probation, or confirmed terms differ in your policy, the letter should follow the workspace you put them in. Dayzen lifecycle includes those workspaces; the letter is a view of that classification, not a third one.

Confirmation letter

A confirmation letter is commonly issued when probation ends under your policy. It is not a nationwide statutory form here, and it is not a performance-management product. Dayzen does not turn this letter into PMS; PMS means Project Management System, not HR appraisal software. Record that probation ended or extended on a date, with an approver; the letter prints that event. An extension is a dated revision, not a second employee. If you exit instead of confirming, use the real exit event — not a confirmation PDF with a quiet last paragraph. Do not wait for the letter before paying someone already active. Payroll does not require a PDF to run a month.

Promotion and raise letters

Promotion and raise letters are snapshots of employment-record change events: designation, pay, or both, with an effective date. The event itself belongs with lifecycle change history (raise, promotion, renewal, stipend proposals as you use them). This catalog only names the letter type. It will not teach you how to run a merit cycle.

Keep the letter aligned with:

• The effective date payroll will use for the new structure — future-dated changes are a sibling topic; do not print “with immediate effect” if the row says next month.
• The designation employee management and org charts will show.
• Whether reporting line changed. If it did not, do not invent a new manager in the letter.

A raise without a designation change, and a designation change without a raise, are different snapshots. Do not file both as “promotion” if only pay moved.

Transfer letters

A transfer letter commonly records a change of location, department, or reporting line while employment continues. It is not a new appointment unless you actually ended one contract and started another — which is a different event and should not be disguised as a transfer PDF.

Transfers collide with attendance location, payroll location if you use it, and site-specific kit. This page does not own asset assignment. Update the employee row first; a letter that says a new city while the row still shows the old one will poison punches. If internal mobility is really a new role, name it as promotion or appointment in your practice — not a “transfer” euphemism for a pay cut or probation restart unless the reviewed record actually shows that.

Relieving and experience letters

Relieving and experience letters are exit snapshots. Relieving commonly states that the person is relieved from duties on a date (often aligned to last working date). Experience commonly states tenure, role, and sometimes last designation. Some organisations issue one combined PDF. This page does not require two files; it requires that dates match the approved LWD and the roles you actually recorded.

Do not issue experience that starts before appointment or ends after LWD, or invent a designation they never held. Do not settle money in the letter — unpaid salary, leave encashment, and notice recovery belong on the full and final settlement process. If your process separates “relieved from work” from “settlement paid,” write that rule so employees are not given three Fridays. Resignation, notice, and LWD stay on their own article; this catalog only needs LWD as a date the relieving letter must not contradict.

What each letter is for — and is not

Letter (common practice)	Usually snapshots	Is not
Offer	Proposed hire facts before or at accept	Appointment; a token manual (sibling owns tokens)
Appointment	Employment start and terms you put in writing	A statute this page drafts
Confirmation	End of probation as you operate it	PMS or a legal “must issue” form here
Promotion / raise	Pay and/or designation change with effective date	The change event itself
Transfer	Continuing employment, new place or team	A hidden termination and rehire
Relieving / experience	Exit dates and roles as recorded	FNF payment or a second exit checklist

Filing hygiene

Generate from the template version you intend to keep. Store the PDF against the employee, not in a manager’s downloads folder. If facts change, issue a revision with a date; do not overwrite the only copy of the original offer. If two group companies share a brand, the letterhead entity must match the employing entity on the record.

Do not create letters from a mailbox that never hits the HRMS. Dayzen’s templates make output repeatable. They are still not legal advice and will not invent POSH procedure, gratuity wording, or notice-recovery authority.

Failure modes

• Offer tokens edited on this page’s turf. Send the author to the variables article.
• Appointment letter with a different CTC than payroll structure. The letter is not a second payroll.
• Confirmation letter with no status change on the employee. Paper without an event.
• Promotion letter effective last month, structure change next month. Payslips will not match the PDF.
• Experience letter issued while LWD is still blank. You are dating fiction.
• Treating the catalog as legally prescribed. It is not.

Letters are snapshots of employment events. Practice is not the same as a statutory packing list. Templates print the record; they do not replace counsel or the offer-token article.

This page will not supply clause libraries or a legally prescribed packing list. It will not duplicate offer-variable hygiene, FNF, resignation clocks, or asset handover. It will not link unpublished feature URLs. When someone asks which letter you need, name the event first, then generate the snapshot that matches the row.

---

Offer, appointment, confirmation, promotion or raise, transfer, and relieving or experience letters are common company practice, not a legal template pack. Dayzen lifecycle includes employment letter templates. Offer tokens stay on the offer-variables article. None of this is legal advice.