My 2024 Handbook – What Goes In, and What Stays Out
By VICKY BROWN
If you’re like most of my clients, and colleagues, when you think of an employee handbook you get a bit woozy, with visions of huge corporate headquarters, and faceless ‘suits’ dictating rules from on high.
Well, in actuality, that’s far from the reality. And employee handbook doesn’t have to be stogy – it can, and should, reflect your company’s culture and vibe. In fact, it’s a great way to reinforce those things – and give everyone a clear playing field for how colleagues can interact with one another; what they can expect from the company, and what the company expects from them.
Think of it as the ‘rules of play’
So, does it have to be a zillion pages? No, of course not. Now that’s not to say that I (as an HR professional) probably want you to include a lot more than you want to – so in this episode, I’m going to try to rigorously self edit, and focus in on the must have policies.
First – you should definitely include the policies that reinforce fair play. Policies on Equal Employment and Discrimination and Harassment free workplaces are important – as is addressing the American with Disabilities Act. All these areas have specific legal requirements for employers, and it’s important that you spell out that you a) know your obligations b) abide by the requirements and c) what you expect from your team.
For instance, if a manager is told about a possible harassment situation – well, it’s the same as the company being told. So if that manager doesn’t move that complaint up to senior management – well then, the company is on the hook for not doing anything about something it didn’t know about in the first place.
Or if a dept head is hiring for an open position, and they ask inappropriate questions that point to discrimination – that’s a problem, and your handbook policy should address it.
Next up let’s talk about policies that reinforce how you want your team to engage with the company. Some policies that come under this umbrella are Alcohol and Drug Free Workplace; the use of Company Technology, and guidelines around Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest.
Now on the Alcohol and Drug Free policy, it’s important to remember that in most states you can only address what’s happening , in the workplace that’s directly impacting work performance. So, ‘wow, I think Mary smokes weed during her off time’ vs. ‘wow, Mary smells like weed when she comes back from lunch, and kept forgetting the client’s name as she was talking to them on the phone’ – well, those are two very different things.
And here’s a pro tip – I’m absolutely not saying you should take sweeping action because of the phone call thing. You definitely have to do a bit of digging first – because there may be extenuating circumstances around both the memory issue and the smell of drugs. There may be an underlying medical situation – so these things can get very complex, very quickly.
All that to say, you need to have a policy with clear guidelines – and if or when a situation arises, you’ll need to get your labor counsel involved.
“…whatever you do – DO NOT just pull something from the internet, do a couple of name changes, and use it as your handbook. Ditto using the handbook from a former company you used to worked with. The handbook needs to accurately reflect what’s happening in your company“
Now the Conflict of Interest policy can be very handy. For instance, here in California we don’t’ have any prohibition on someone having more than one job (you know, moonlighting). But, in the Conflict of Interest policy you can at least require the employee to disclose if they are working for someone else so you can determine if a conflict exists. Without that, you might have no way of knowing.
The next set of policies are designed to lay out the ground rules are being an employee with the company. What are the employment categories – exempt, non exempt, full time, part time – things like that. When and how does payroll happen, what are the work hours, how do you report time etc.
And next we get to the policies around time when the employee isn’t working. Yep, all the leave policies. These include paid and unpaid time off, so things like sick time, vacation days, personal days (if you have them), holidays. And time to take care of personal things like bereavement leave, jury duty, time off to vote, medical and medically related leaves for the employee and their family members.
All these leave programs (both the paid and unpaid) tend to be highly regulated, so it’s important that your policies are clear, and have all the important (and legally required) points included. So again, it’s really important that you include and HR professional or your labor counsel in the process of creating your handbook.
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Now again, as I mentioned earlier – I’m and HR professional, so there are all sorts of other things I think are important to include: the warning procedure, family members in the workplace, how the company addresses nepotism and intimate relationships. Information on resignations, how personnel records are handled – to say nothing of including a message from the management team as well as the company’s mission and vision statements. And that’s just to name a few.
So again – check with your HR professional or labor counsel as you start this process.
Oh, and by the way – whatever you do – DO NOT just pull something from the internet, do a couple of name changes, and use it as your handbook. Ditto using the handbook from a former company you used to worked with. The handbook needs to accurately reflect what’s happening in your company, and if you try to adapt something from another company, you might find that there are policies included that shouldn’t apply to you – but now they do, because you have them in your handbook.