Does your company strictly need to produce and distribute an employee handbook? Depending on where your business is based, perhaps not; in the UK, at least, having an employee handbook is not explicitly mandated by law, reports People Management.
In practice, though, such a handbook can help your business to instil its culture in employees and familiarise them with rights and responsibilities. Here are examples of what you should include…
Introduction to your company and its values
HubSpot provides an employee handbook template which, if used for your handbook, would see it open with describing various aspects of your company. Those aspects will include when, why and by whom the business was founded and its current mission statement.
In introducing your company through these ways, you can make fresh recruits excited about the new phase of their career they will spend in your employ.
Code of conduct
Summarising your company’s code of conduct in your handbook will enable you to further emphasise your company’s values – as, naturally, the code of conduct should aim to help your employees work in adherence to these values.
Computers and technology policy
You might provide your workers with an array of tech for work purposes, but it should be used for exactly that – work purposes.
That’s why, in your employee handbook, you could touch on such subjects as whether you are entitled to see emails your employees send using company computers and whether these workers should keep away from social media on those computers.
Health and safety policies
In the UK, employers with over five employees have a statutory duty to produce a written statement of health and safety policies and let staff know about these policies. An employee handbook certainly seems like a convenient place to insert that written statement.
Your commitment to diversity and equal opportunities
Perhaps surprisingly, you need to keep up this commitment not just in your workplace but also when you are deciding who to recruit to it. Otherwise, as an employer, you could be liable for discrimination against your current employees or even prospective ones.
Non-disclosure agreement and confidentiality policy
Obviously, if you’ve classified certain information in your business as confidential, you don’t want that information falling into the wrong hands – whether it concerns your company’s internal operations or your clients.
The handbook provides an avenue through which you can specify what you deem confidential information, which likely includes your firm’s internal business plan and workers’ financial account details.
Signature page
Less is more, so the saying goes – and, indeed, two particularly strong reasons abound for you to include a signature page, however sparse it might initially look without a signature, in the handbook.
One is that the presence of the handbook recipient’s signature would confirm that the employee received the handbook. The second reason is that this employee is incentivised to read the handbook fully before signing it.
By purchasing from a broad selection of booklet makers, you can give yourself the means of producing a large quantity of handbooks quickly.
