Do-It-Yourself, Customizable Employee Handbook: Save Time and Money

By Vanessa Nelson

The average lawsuit settlement settlement is $165,000!
It takes just one disgruntled employee or applicant to file a lawsuit against you. It is crucial for companies (of all sizes) to reduce the risk of lawsuits by creating a legally compliant employee handbook.

The employee handbook is the most important communication tool between you and your employees. It also helps supervisors and managers to manage the workforce. A handbook tells employees what the company expects from them and what they can expect from the company, i.e.,

“What are my working hours?”
“Who do I complain to about my supervisor’s sexual advances?”
“Am I eligible for Holiday pay?”
“What is the dress code?”
A well-written employee handbook will answer these questions and more.

It is always safer to rely on written procedures rather than common practices of the business or unwritten procedures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781300448594

Book preview

Do-It-Yourself, Customizable Employee Handbook: Save Time and Money

Do-It-Yourself, Customizable Employee Handbook for Small Businesses

Copyright 2012/ Vanessa G. Nelson, SPHR/Expert HR Pro

http://www.experthrpro.com

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Can You Afford to Throw Away $165,000 on a Lawsuit?

Reasons to possess an updated Employee Manual

Employee lawsuits are on the rise and 61% of employee-related claims are settled in favor of the employee.  It is crucial for companies to reduce the risk of lawsuits by creating a legally compliant employee handbook/manual.  Employee manuals should be aligned and customized to your particular business.  They should be written using simple language.

Reasons to have a manual include:

Avoids legal disputes – when consistently followed, well written policies create uniformity and help prevent disputes.

Reiterates Employment-At-Will Policy.  You can never mention the At-Will Policy enough.

To document employee questions and expectations, i.e. dress codes, work hours, complaint process, etc.

To encourage uniformity by getting the entire staff pulling in the same direction.

Employee manuals should contain:

Mission Statement – to ensure employees understand company goals

Hiring Process

EEO Statement

Sexual Harassment  and Drug and Alcohol Policy

Benefits

Safe Workplace

Conduct Rules and Disciplinary Process

Bold disclaimers should be included in all employee handbooks as well as a clear explanation of at-will employment.  Court decisions have even created rights for employers to limit an employees’ access to the court system and restrict them to the arbitration process.  It is always safer to rely upon written procedures rather than common practices of the business or unwritten procedures.  Do not think that the employee manual is not important, it takes only one time to realize that it was a mistake by not having one, and by that time, it could be too late.

Do-It-Yourself Employee Handbook

How to Guide

Thank you for purchasing the Do It Yourself (DIY) Employee Handbook, your guide to enhanced work flow, efficiency and lawsuit avoidance.  This handbook contains more than 50 policies and can be customized to fit your company’s needs.

Steps to creating your customized handbook:

Enter your company name, logo, address and creation date in the spaces provided on the first page

The revisable Table of Contents should be revised after completion of your handbook to ensure the page numbers align with your customized book.

Brackets [  ], are provided for your convenience.  Please remove the information in the brackets and insert your personalized information, example: [Your Company Name] is an Equal Opportunity employer… can be revised to ABC Company is an Equal Opportunity employer…

Review the entire book.

Remove policies that don’t apply to your company.

Add procedures and/or policies that are unique to your company as needed.

Create copy to align with your company procedures.

Revise Table of Contents.

Done!  Congratulations on creating your Customized Employee Handbook!  It is strongly recommended that you have your new handbook reviewed by an attorney, legal representative or Human Resources Manager before mass production or disbursement.

Enter Your Company Name Here and LOGO here

Employee Handbook

[Your Company Name]

[Your Company Address]

[Your Company City, State, and Zip Code]

[Enter date, Month, Day, and Year]

PURPOSE OF THE EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK

This handbook reflects the policies and procedures of [Your Company Name]. The policies and procedures are not intended to be contractual commitments by [Your Company Name], and employees shall not construe them as such. The policies and procedures are intended to be guides to employees and management and are merely descriptive of suggested procedures to be followed. [Your Company Name] reserves the right to revoke, change or supplement guidelines at any time without notice.

The purpose of the policies and procedures is:

To set forth guidelines and expectations for employees

To provide management with the information necessary to fulfill its responsibilities to its employees and;

To provide for fairness and equity in the treatment of employees.

It is expected that managers and employees become familiar with the contents of this handbook so that they will be able to apply the appropriate policies and procedures as the occasion requires.  Questions about application, interpretation, or clarification regarding any specific policies or procedures are to be directed to [Title of highest-ranking Human Resources Professional].

This Employee