Some great points on here just to answer this one as i happened to do it by accident
I'm not initially sure what Promises are. I read the handbook but they don't offer much information. I thought maybe it would be if you talked to a worker and said "I'd like you to increase your size", but I did this, it was successful, but it wasn't added to the Promises section.
I got a promise to show up when i asked someone to put another worker over and it said its good for 1 show and disappears after a month if not used in my case.
and on this one
Another company made a contract offer for one of my workers. I loaded up his profile from the email I received and I couldn't find a way to see how long his contract was as the Negotiation button wouldn't work because he wasn't in the final month of his contract. I then loaded up the Contract screen and it said he had 2 years, 11 months and 3 weeks remaining. I then moved on the next couple of days and my worker had been signed by this other company and his contract expiry changed to 28 days. This could potentially be an issue due to having to change the database from May 2001 to January 2002, but even still, there were nearly 3 years remaining on the contract.
Contracts now have to be iron clad i believe to stop poaching being possible even under written deals.