Practical Employee Handbook Goals
Importance of Employee Handbook
Throughout my career, I have often joked with HR professionals that legal and HR might be the only two departments that actually read the Employee Handbook! While an Employee Handbook is not likely to be a page turner, there are several important reasons to prepare and maintain an Employee Handbook for your business or organization. Employees should have access to the Handbook, and employers should take steps to ensure that employees review the Handbook and any updates.
There are many reasons to prepare an Employee Handbook, including complying with legal requirements, communicating policies and expectations to employees, providing a resource to managers and supervisors, and promoting your culture and values.
Compliance with Legal Requirements
There are only a few laws that actually require a written policy or notice in an employee handbook (e.g., Chicago Sexual Harassment Prevention, Pregnancy Accommodation in Illinois, etc.). However, there are many policies that help a business demonstrate compliance with a legal requirement. For example, including a process for requesting an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) not only provides helpful information to employees, but it also demonstrates to regulators and other outside agencies that the organization has a process that complies with the ADA and applicable state law.
Some of your compliance requirements depend on the number of employees in your organization. For example, there are some legal requirements that only apply to employers with 15 or more employees. For example, the Illinois Equal Pay Act requires employers with 15 or more employees to include salary and benefits in job postings. Similarly, the Family Medical Leave Act applies to employers with 50 or more employees.
Communication Tool
Ideally, your Employee Handbook will be a resource that employees utilize to answer basic questions about policies at your organization. An employee may wonder about your dress code or what holidays are provided. Your Handbook should be provided to new employees as part of your onboarding. Your Handbook should be easily searchable and contain a table of contents for ease of reference. It may also be a good idea to provide some FAQs to provide answers to frequent questions that HR or other leaders receive.
Resource for Managers and Leaders
Your managers and supervisors should familiarize themselves with your Employee Handbook and should contact their manager if they have questions or concerns with the application of any of the policies in the Handbook. Organizations should make sure that managers understand the policies contained in the Handbook and that they follow them. Managers who do not follow the policies in the Handbook should be counseled. Managers may be a good resource for suggested edits to policies in the Handbook as they are often working to implement the policies with our employees.
Culture and Values
Organizations may think of an Employee Handbook as a chore that needs to be completed, but writing or updating a Handbook is also an opportunity to include your mission and values in the policies of your organization. Handbooks are another way to describe the goals of your organization and to tailor your policies to fit your culture (within legal requirements, of course!).
Next Steps
Once the Employee Handbook is completed, organizations may be inclined to pat themselves on the back and move on to the next project. It is important to keep the Handbook updated with current legal requirements and to review periodically to make sure that the Handbook accurately reflects your current policies and practices. If you have a policy in your Handbook that is not followed, you may have compliance issues in the event of a complaint or lawsuit filed by a current or former employee.
Once you have updated the Handbook, you should provide it to employees and obtain a written acknowledgement. You can utilize your HRIS or payroll system to assist with the process and should maintain the signed acknowledgement as part of an employee’s personnel file.
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