Does your organization have an Employee Handbook? If so, when is the last time you updated it? Employee Handbooks are necessary for setting expectations up front with new employees and serve as a reference for existing employees who might have specific questions. In addition, Employee Handbooks serve as a written statement of company policy, require new employees to review/sign-off on and include mandatory information from State and Federal Governments.  When an employee signs off by acknowledging that they have reviewed and accepted the polices in the Employee Handbook then there is a legally enforceable agreement in place between the employer and employee.

In doing a quick scan of the Employees Only Employee Handbook, I noticed the following:

• # of Pages – 38
• The Table Of Contents has 10 unique sections
• The Handbook contains a last updated date
• Employees can access the Handbook via a centralized location
• There are 6 sections that Employees must acknowledge to reviewing and understanding

So what makes for a good Employee Handbook? This is a hard question to answer as each organization is unique but the general rule of thumb is that the Employee Handbook should provide clear advice on company policy related to such things as dress code, vacation/paid time off, benefit eligibility, harassment policy, etc.

DID YOU KNOW: If your organization is over 50 employees, your Employee Handbook must have information related to the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 or FMLA.

Are you in need of an Employee Handbook? In doing a quick search in Google, there are Employee Handbook templates available from great resources such as the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) and Entrepreneur.com, as well as other companies who offer services for creating an Employee Handbook.

As you work on creating/updating your Employee Handbook, our recommendation is to at least speak to a company who is an HR Subject Matter Expert. The last thing you want to happen is to use an old template to create your Employee Handbook or miss out on a new key piece of legislation that needs to be included in your Employee Handbook (ex. Americans with Disability Act or Compliance with the Affordable Care Act). A few Employee Handbook items that you will want to keep an eye out for to
ensure your handbook (or the template that you are using) is as up to date as possible include:

• Compliant with the Affordable Care Act (ADA)
• Contains a Social Media Policy
• Addresses employee utilization of their smartphone for business use
• Mileage reimbursement rate from the Federal Government is up to date

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Source:  www.EmployeesOnly.net