The foundation of human resource function and documents is employment law, and one of the biggest areas that employment law comes into play is policy development. Sometimes policy gets a bad rap, but think of how “unwritten” policy is used successfully in running our households. No dessert until you eat your meal. Whoever finishes his chores first gets to choose the game we’ll play. No doggy treats unless you shake paws. That’s good policy that allows people to self-reward because they know the expectations.
Unlike in your households (hopefully), in the HR world, there are a lot more written regulations that obligate all (or most) of us business owners due to bad behavior on the part of the few. So, policy also involves language to keep our organization compliant (and not just in word only) with employment legislation.
Employee Handbooks
Whether you use the term “personnel manual”, “HR policy manual”, “personnel guidelines”, “handbook” or so on, the best reason(s) to have an employee handbook is to save the owner headache and money. Handbooks are integral in protecting the owner’s “at will” status, setting up clear guidelines for employees, as well as giving you a way of documenting employees’ acceptance and understanding of rules.
We want to make certain you not only have a handbook, but that you use it appropriately. ea will make certain your custom manual does what you need, but doesn’t hamstring your company by including policies that you aren’t legally required to follow, nor do you have the time to enforce.
Contact us if you’d like:
- a review/update of your existing manual
- total new rewrite
- assistance with a particular policy
Remember, a policy isn’t always the answer, and not every company needs a full-blown handbook; but we can help walk you through the options and come up with a sensible solution.