Laying out the rule book

I thought about that again as I was recently reviewing our employee handbook. I put my company's first employee handbook together about 15 years ago, and it's been evolving little by little since that time. My last major overhaul to it took place in 1999, and though I'd made some minor tweaks and a couple addendums since then, I'd been thinking for a while it might be time to give it another good review.

Just by chance, my business insurance agent happened to let me know he could supply an employee handbook template as part of the value-added services he provides. As I spent a little time reviewing it against my own handbook, I found it had some better wording here and there, and some expanded, more detailed definitions of some policies than my handbook.

Once I'd combined what I considered to be the best from each, I decided it would be worth the investment of having an attorney review it. Here are a few things I picked up from that review and from other presentations about employee handbooks I've attended over the years. (I'm hardly qualified to give legal advice, but these are some things you might want to discuss with an attorney about your employee handbook.)

• Although you want to try to keep the manual simple and easy-to-understand, it also should be complete. You can't just say, for example, that "All employees get the following holidays off..." unless you mean ALL employees, even temporary or part-time employees. And make it clear whether employees get the holidays off with or without pay. Along those lines, the attorney who conducted the most recent review of our handbook felt we should more clearly define the work week for consistency in measuring overtime.
• New policies I've recently added address email and Internet usage. Among the provisions: You may not display, download or email sexually explicit images messages or cartoons, or use computers or email for ethnic slurs, racial comments, off-color jokes or anything another person might take as harassment or disrespect. The policy says we also reserve the right to monitor computer and email usage.
• Similarly, we added a cell phone policy to the handbook, noting that employees are prohibited from using a cell phone while operating a customer or shop vehicle, unless the vehicle is stopped and out of any roadway traffic lane.
• My most recent employee handbook hadn't explained how we handle any vacation time an employee may have accrued at the time of his or her dismissal. The attorney suggested this was something we should add.
• In my discussions with other shop operators, it seems more and more owners are adding security cameras throughout their shop and property. We haven't done that, but we did add a policy to our handbook just in case we move in that direction. It says we may perform video surveillance of non-private workplace areas to identify safety concerns, maintain quality control, detect theft and misconduct and discourage harassment or workplace violence.
• Another policy we added covers conflict of interest. It prohibits employees, for example, of soliciting work for themselves while on company time or property.
• I remember one attorney at a seminar explaining that your employee handbook should forbid any "oral contracts" between any owners, supervisors or employees, and should also state that any past oral contracts are not binding. He cited an example of a million-dollar lawsuit brought (and won) by an employee who was laid off after being told by a well-meaning supervisor that despite impending layoffs at the company, he wouldn't be laid off "as long as there was still production coming through the door." That was seen as an oral contract.
• If it's been a while since reviewing your handbook's harassment, immigration law compliance or disability accommodation statement, it's probably worth doing so. Those sections have grown in importance, according to employment law attorneys, and certainly in length in our manual.
• It's important to have employees sign a form that says they have received a copy of the manual and they agree to abide by company policies. If I remember correctly, I had a form like this in my first handbook, but it just said the employee acknowledges receiving the manual. It's important to have their signature saying they understand it's their responsibility to read it and abide by its contents.

As you might expect, our employee handbook has increased in size quite a bit from its original nine or 10 pages back in 1991. But the added detail serves two important purposes: It helps give employees some answers and guidance on what to expect and what's expected of them, and it helps protect our business from costly litigation.