Startup Employee Handbook

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The startup employee handbook is very important in every niche. One of the instruments that help you do all of these items is the employee handbook: it’s a necessary useful resource for small companies as a result of it clearly lays out precisely what you anticipate of your employees—and precisely what they will anticipate of you.

Let’s learn below some important facts about the startup employee handbook.

An employee handbook will help you:

Clarify your business policies
Establish clear work expectations
Inform employees of their rights and advantages
Simplify onboarding of latest hires
Signal to employees that the identical guidelines apply to everybody equally
Prepare for difficult HR eventualities, like disputes between co-workers
Defend in opposition to potential lawsuits for sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, and more

The startup employee handbook will take some up-front effort to plan and write a great employee handbook; however it would repay exponentially later, while you out of the blue understand how seldom you’re having to clarify the identical policy, again and again, area the identical recurring questions, and remind employees of labor policies.

What to Include in an Employee Handbook

Before you start writing your employee handbook, you must plan out precisely what you’ll embrace. Here are a number of issues to get you began:

1. A message that units the tone in your business culture

Before you dive right into policies and procedures for the startup employee handbook, it’s good to welcome employees and set the tone for what they will anticipate out of your company’s culture. Some issues to think about together with are:

A welcome letter from company leaders
Your history and mission assertion
Your company’s cultural values

2. HR expectations and policies

The employee handbook ought to clearly define HR policies relating to issues like:

Annual office closures and holidays
Established working hours and lunch break policies, if any
Professional costume code expectations, if any
Notice required for the trip, a day without work, and medical go away
Reimbursement of business travel bills
Annual review policies and expectations
How you make selections about employee promotions and raises
Procedures for submitting office complaints
Disciplinary procedures for when employees don’t meet expectations

3. Employee advantages

In your employee handbook, clearly clarify the advantages employees are entitled to whereas employed with you. For instance:

How a lot of paid trip time can they anticipate for each year of employment?
Will you have a parental go-away policy? Does it prolong to each parent? What does it entail?
What about your family and medical go-away policies?
Do you enable versatile work-from-home preparations?
Do you present alternatives for professional improvement?
Which health and dental advantages do you supply?
What about retirement advantages? Do you match employee contributions?

4. Written authorized policies

As your business grows, so does the danger of publicity to potential lawsuits for the whole lot from sexual harassment to wrongful termination. Having a written policy around these subjects can provide you an added layer of authorized safety.

Depending on the place your business is situated, it’s possible you’ll even be legally required to have written policies in place. California, for instance, requires employers to have policies relating to office harassment and inside reporting procedures.

Legal policies it’s possible you’ll take into account together with within the employee handbook embrace:

Harassment and discrimination policies
Nondisclosure agreements
Noncompete agreements
Rules about mental property rights
Arbitration dispute procedures
Privacy policies
Safety procedures and expectations
At-will employment policies
Codes of conduct
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) policies

It’s essential to get these policies right: verify together with your lawyer to be sure you cover all of your bases and adjust to any authorized necessities in your jurisdiction.

What to Do Once You’ve Written Your First Draft

Once you’ve outlined and written the first draft of your employee handbook, don’t simply print it, publish it, and distribute it to employees. There are nonetheless a number of more steps to take before it’s able to go:

Have an employment lawyer review it. A pointy pair of authorized eyes can spot potential issues, omissions, and ambiguities in how your policies have been written—particularly relating to essential subjects like sexual harassment or discrimination. A very good lawyer will advocate that you just use very particular wording that leaves no room for misinterpretation so that you’re shielded from authorized hassle later down the street.

Have an excellent editor work on it. It’s essential to have a robust editor or author polish the language in your employee handbook in order that it’s clear, easy, and unambiguous. He or she will help you transform long, wordy sentences and complicated jargon into a really helpful employee handbook that everybody can simply learn, reference, and perceive.

Proofread. Never proofread one thing you’ve written yourself: as a substitute, hand it over to a recent pair of eyes. Having one other particular person (maybe even a professional proofreader) verify your startup employee handbook can prevent problems in the long run. You don’t need to open the employee handbook someday and discover an obtrusive typo that dramatically adjustments the that means of a policy—particularly when you’ve already despatched it out and had employees conform to its phrases.

Include the date of publication (and dates of future updates, as you make them). As your business evolves, you’ll little question make adjustments and additions to your employee handbook. Be certain up to know each model while you achieve this, and to avoid wasting copies of old variations.

This is an added measure of safety in opposition to future lawsuits, when it’s possible you’ll be required to show you had sure policies and guidelines in place at a selected time limit.

Distributing the Employee Handbook to Employees

Once your handbook is printed or printed, ask your employees to learn it fastidiously and signal a type stating that they’ve learned, understood, and agreed to the phrases and policies inside.

Finally, bear in mind: whereas we’re happy to offer you this starter information to writing an employee handbook, it’s not an alternative to a professional authorized recommendation.

Download the employee handbook pdf and start compiling yours!

Download the employee handbook doc and start compiling yours!

Startup Employee Handbook – Templates | Advantages | Structures