Articles

Most companies provide answers to these two important questions through the publication of an employee handbook. The contents of employee handbooks affect your business and legal relationship with your employees. An employee handbook is the keystone of your organization’s employee relations program and should reflect your company’s philosophy of human resource management in a user-friendly and positive manner.

An employee handbook can do more harm than good if it is not carefully developed. The handbook should protect your organization from allegations by setting clear expectations and standards. If written and administered properly, this document will help defend employers against many employment-related claims brought by employees, such as wrongful termination, discrimination and harassment. In addition, the handbook introduces new employees to the organization in a positive way.

The process used to develop an employee handbook is critical. The final product should reflect your company’s business philosophy. The content should be understood by all employees and must be consistently interpreted and administered by management. If the process is correct, then the employee handbook will clearly answer the questions of “what do you expect from your employees and what do your employees expect from you?”

The following outlines the development process of an employee handbook:

1. Prior to writing a new handbook or revising an existing one, identify all written and unwritten company policies. The handbook should cover many areas and include updates with new issues.
2. Senior management should review a draft of all policies to ensure they reflect the company philosophy and culture. In addition, the policies need to be easy for everyone in the organization to abide by and understand.
3. Following senior management’s approval, the first-line supervisors should review the contents. The supervisors are generally the primary “answer person” relative to policies and thus their knowledge of the handbook is critical. They are responsible for understanding all of the content within the handbook because they are the ones who explain and administer the policies to their employees.
4. The supervisor should conduct a final handbook review with employees to examine all of the major topics and answer any employee concerns or questions.
5. Lastly, every employee should receive a handbook and be required to read it. Employees will sign a form acknowledging they have been given a copy and are responsible for knowing the contents.

Employee handbooks have become very easy to prepare – you can borrow one from another company and tailor certain parts to your organization or buy a cheap one on the internet. The challenge, however, is making sure you implement a total process that creates a handbook reflecting your culture. The process should engage management so they understand the policies and realize the importance of applying them consistently. Finally, the handbook is also for employees so the information should be in a user-friendly manner.