Why You Need an Employee Hand Book

If you enjoy the legal system and don't mind paying out large sums of money to present and past employees then I would suggest that you disregard having an employee hand book! You may think I am kidding, but I am not. I have never been to an unemployment hearing, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission inquiry, or any other legal challenge where they have not asked me for a copy of our Employee Hand Book. If you are unfamiliar with what an employee hand book is, it is quite simply the company's position on all employee issues, from payroll to discipline. Not to forget about policies on sexual harassment, discrimination and all other federal and state laws. Not having one is the first step in your company not making the employee aware of your policies and position on issues. Remember you have a responsibility to inform your employees of certain things. For instance, let's say that you have an employee that is sexually harassing another employee. This goes on unnoticed by any supervisor until the employee being harassed finally steps forward and complains to management. To your surprise you find out that the employee is taking legal action against you for not protecting her in the workplace. Your defense is that you didn't know that she was being harassed. As soon as you knew you took action. Well that is very good that you took immediate action, but what did you do prior to that? You explain that you didn't know it was going on. The next question that will be asked is if you had a policy in place to inform employees of your position of not allowing sexual harassment in the workplace. In addition, did you inform employees that if they are sexually harassed who they can contact to report it? Did you also inform them of who they could contact if they were being harassed by the supervisor? If your response to them is I didn't do this, say so long to your wallet. Chances are very good that you will lose your legal battle. There are many responsibilities that you are required to inform your employees about, and this is just one of them. It can turn around and bite you in the butt if you have no employee hand book explaining the process for discipline and when termination could be a possibility. This will also help you stay consistent in your applying discipline. Don't be left unprotected no matter how small your organization is. Especially knowing how inexpensive an employee hand book is to produce. May God Bless You!