Top 9 policies you need in your employee handbook

Most of the small business owners won’t pay attention to creating an employee handbook. They think that it is an unnecessary expenditure which they should avoid to reduce their business costs. But, this is wrong thinking because one handbook can offer three cool benefits – describe the company’s expectations from their employees, presents legal requirements in the written and states the HR policies and behavior instructions for the employees in broad daylight.

The handbook for the employees should be designed according to the requirements of the company. Every organization has different expectations and legal requirements to fulfill; that’s why the structure of every handbook needs to be different. However, the standard policies that every worker’s handbook must have are –

1. Basic Behaviour Rules

In the handbook, organizations should first provide the basic conduct rules which every employee has to follow. There are some basic behavioral rules which are required to be followed by a civilized business organization such a theft, sleeping during work hours, property damage, abuse, consumption of intoxicates and other related activities.

2. Joining Terms

The human resource department needs to include the necessary joining HR policies in the handbook. The newly hired employee should be familiar with the basic terms of employment right after their recruiting process and before walking through the doors of the office. There should not be any doubt in the minds of employees regarding the employment terms and conditions. The basic joining terms include – at-will clause, employment opportunities, conflict resolution methods, confidentiality agreement, and other general terms.

3. Office Schedule

Employees should be given proper written instructions on where they should be working on a given period. The brief description of the office schedule should be mentioned in the employee handbook so that employees have a basic idea about when, where and how they work in the organization. Under the office schedule chapter following heads needs to be covered – work timing, lunch break, work from home policy, guidelines to use the company’s equipment, and other specialized legal services.

4. Communication Methods

Communication is the key to a successful business organization. That’s why you should describe the method of communication in your employee help book so that they can understand how and when to communicate with other people. The proper communication method should be described in the book such as how to communicate with other employees and how to interact with vendors, customers, etc., There are numerous different communications methods are available like email, phone calls, texting, video calls, social media, etc.,

5. Compensation

Compensation is very important to make your employees efficient and productive. The HR policies related to compensation and performance review should be properly described in the handbook so that there won’t be any dispute regarding the evolution of performance or compensation. In this section, companies should include policies related to the job description, payroll schedule, payment deduction, promotion, bonuses, and other employment benefits.

6. Employees Benefits

This is the most attractive section for employees in the handbook. This section will introduce them with the extra benefits that they will receive for being part of the company. Apart from the regular salary, employees are highly looking forward to attaining additional benefits for working in the organization. In this section, all the terms and conditions related to the employees’ beneficial schemes should be explained, like when, how, and under which circumstances they will get the benefits.

7. Offboarding Policies

Apart from the onboard policy, the company should describe -board policies in the handbook also. These policies are related to this situation when employees want to leave work due to some reasons. In this HR policies, topics like when they will receive their last paycheck, when should they give their resignation and the detail resignation process needs to be mentioned.

8. Company’s Story

Well, this isn’t important policies related to employment, but it is very important to describe your company’s story in the employee handbook. By reading about your company’s goals, motivation and aim, employees can better relate with the company. When employees understand the objective of the company and the future goals of the organization, then they can work better in the direction of turning all the future goals of the organization into a reality. This will make employees feel more connected with the company and this helps in motivating employees.

9. Workplace Safety and Security

This point is on the priority list of every employee. The handbook should not only outline a zero-tolerance policy, but it should include specific information on security procedures. When the rules related to safety and security are cleared in written, then employees feel more safe and protected while working in the office, which eventually improves their level of productivity.

Also Read: Keep an Eye on Your Employees With Best Monitoring App

If companies want to design a well structured and legally feasible employee handbook, then they should include the above-mentioned HR policies in it. By adding up these policies in written, both employees and employers can work together without any issues.