The year-end season is a great time to review the employee policies that will help guide your business into the New Year.
An employee handbook is important for all businesses to have, no matter their size. It provides the play book and rules for the employees. Communication is one of the best ways to have a happy and effective workforce. If employees know what to expect, then they will be able to focus on getting the work done that makes them proud and their employer successful.
If you already have an employee handbook, this time of year is a great time to review your policies: You are already looking at the year end, wrapping up various aspects of your business, reviewing business plans and perhaps winding up your fiscal year. As long as you are reviewing the progress of your business, why not review the effectiveness of the handbook that helps guide your business?
Your policies should reflect the business and business practices that are actually in place, not what you thought they would be when you first wrote your handbook. Your handbook may have been ideal when it was first written. However, companies change and evolve if they are responsive to the business climate. This means that the practices they use will also change and evolve. Additionally, laws change. It is not enough to watch the statutes, however. Many times it is the case law interpretations of the statutes that help define what should be in your handbook. Cases go to trial and help refine what an effective policy should be. It is important you have some way of tracking these changes so your handbook can evolve as the laws evolve.
Ok, so what should be in it? There are a number of policies to consider. You should have a policy that lets your employees know that you will not tolerate harassment or discrimination of any kind. The policy should include an outline of how and to whom an employee can report their complaints. The policy should let the employees know what will happen when a complaint is received. The policy should also remind employees that retaliation against people making complaints or cooperating in an investigation will not be tolerated.
If your company is large enough to allow employees to qualify for protected leave under the Family Medical Leave statutes (both state and federal) it is important to have a policy that outlines the company's expectations under these laws. The policy should inform employees of their rights under the statutes, as well as letting them know what they have to do to apply for leave.
If your state requires that the employees are given meal breaks and/or rest periods, you need to have a policy that defines when you give these to the employees and why it is important they take them. More importantly, the policy needs to remind employees what may happen if they fail to take the meal breaks and rest periods.
Your handbook should also state your company's position on overtime. Is mandatory overtime required by the company? Does overtime have to have prior approval? What happens to the employee if they abuse the overtime? Does your company have a procedure that is followed for awarding overtime opportunities?
These seem to be a very eclectic mix of policies. Why, you may ask, am I stressing these policies? Well, there are some policies that I call the "must haves" policies and some that are the "guidance" policies. "Must haves" are the policies that have been developed due to requirements by statute (family leave policies) as well as by case law (harassment/discrimination policies). These policies should be in place to protect an employer's ability to manage their workforce. For example, if you don't have the family leave policy that defines how you count the qualifying leave year, the courts tell you how you have to count it. As you can well imagine, the default on the counting of the leave year is friendlier to the employee than the employer. Thus, if you want the ability to manage the multiple leaves, such as family medical leave, worker's compensation and leave under the Americans with Disabilities Act, you need to be proactive and have the leaves addressed in your policies.
"Must haves" also set up defenses if you are sued by an employee or audited by an administrative agency. However, without the right policy, or wording in the policy, the defenses may be lost. Finally, when there are overlapping federal laws and state laws, the must haves clarify for the employee how the overlapping laws will affect them.