{"id":2131,"date":"2021-11-17T21:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T15:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/?p=2131"},"modified":"2021-11-17T21:00:48","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T15:30:48","slug":"mistakes-to-avoid-with-employee-handbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/17\/mistakes-to-avoid-with-employee-handbooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistakes to Avoid with Employee Handbooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Employee handbooks are a critical element of a company\u2019s overall business strategy. They can affect a person\u2019s performance, determine the terms of his or her employment, and guide a company through a host of legal issues. But employee handbooks can also be a liability, with organizations that fail to keep them up-to-date and accurate jeopardizing an individual\u2019s job performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The last thing organizations want to do is subject themselves to costly lawsuits. And so, many organizations create handbooks, or &#8220;employee manuals&#8221; as they are also known, to guide employees in the areas where they may run afoul of the law.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Employment Handbook Mistakes: What Not To Do<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fact is, employers are legally required to provide their employees with a written employee handbook. Unfortunately, many employers do not follow the important rules outlined in their handbooks. This can lead to serious problems, including lawsuits. As a result, it is important to know the following things to help you avoid mistakes that may lead to legal trouble.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here are a few mistakes to avoid with the employee handbook:<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Taking a Boilerplate Approach<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The goal of any employee handbook is to provide your employees with the knowledge and guidance they need to make sound decisions regarding their roles and responsibilities, as well as the company&#8217;s policies. But how do you achieve this? By clearly outlining key policies, explaining the reasoning behind those policies, and linking those policies to the company\u2019s values.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Not Incorporating All Policies in the Handbook<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A policy handbook helps employers communicate information to employees about the company, the work environment, and the benefits of working there. Employees likely expect to see any new policies in their handbooks, but employers often forget to include the most important policies in the handbook, including safety policies, policies on safety hazards, and policies on workplace diversity. This can cause confusion for employees who are trying to follow the rules of the organization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Omitting Disclaimers<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All employee handbooks must incorporate a disclaimer that no statement in the handbook constitutes a contract for work or modifies the employee\u2019s at-will work relationship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Not Having an Efficient Anti-Harassment Policy<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When it comes to preventing harassment in the workplace, companies don&#8217;t always offer up the best advice. The reality is that there are already laws in place that spell out what constitutes unlawful workplace behavior. If you don&#8217;t want to run afoul of these laws, you&#8217;re better off just avoiding the problem entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Not Making It User-Friendly<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">More and more companies are making the Employee Handbook a long document that requires a team of people to read and understand. But if this communication tool is to be effective, it needs to be user-friendly and accessible to the employees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bottom Line<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An employee handbook is an important part of your business. It can protect your company by ensuring employees understand your expectations and prevent employees from making costly mistakes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A well-written and carefully crafted employee handbook will give you great coverage and protection. Attend the Compliance Prime webinar to know more about the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/details\/848\/employee-handbook-2022\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">employee handbook<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Employee handbooks are a critical element of a company\u2019s overall business strategy. They can affect a person\u2019s performance, determine the terms of his or her employment, and guide a company&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hr-blog"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.complianceprime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}