Company regulations, also called the employee handbook, list a company's policies, procedures and guiding principles. Its purpose is to inform the people who work in the company, so that they know what to expect from the company, and what is expected of them. It is important for a business to have an accurate, concise, and clearly written manual to avoid any legal problems that might arise from a relationship between colleagues, or between employees and superiors. Follow these guidelines to learn how to write one.
Steps
Step 1. Write an introduction to the manual
- Welcome the employees to your business and invite them to read the manual thoroughly.
- Briefly tell the story, the successes and the future goals of the company.
- It indicates the company mission so that readers become familiar with the nature and purpose of the company. For example, you could start with: “Manuali Professionali S.p. A. was created with the aim of offering a complete guide to writers of technical texts. Our teachings are aimed at the creation of regulations divided into easily understandable passages ".
- Try to include details regarding the corporate culture. For example, if your company places a certain emphasis on friendly relations between management and employees, as well as teamwork, you could write: “We value the opinions of all our employees. We know that it is essential to collaborate and do teamwork. For this reason, our managers adhere to an open door policy. We always encourage you to make a contribution to the company through suggestions and ideas ".
- Close the introduction by stating that the company values equal opportunities and respects its legislation.
- The introduction to the manual often takes the form of a letter addressed to the employee, but it is also possible to decide to write it through blocks of informative paragraphs or a bulleted list.
Step 2. Provide explanations of the company policy
When writing employee manuals, it is important to be clear and precise when explaining what is expected of the people being hired. Among other factors, you should include attendance, hours, use of company-owned items, dress rules, non-compete / confidentiality agreement, safety and accident procedures, substance abuse, sexual harassment, discrimination and performance evaluation.
Step 3. Define the compensation and all related aspects
This includes salaries, payment dates, taxes, overtime, pay method, and raises. By law, you must also enter the expected wages for days off work due to maternity, funeral, military service, juror assignments, and family medical situations.
Step 4. List the business benefits
The employee handbook should include information on health insurance, retirement savings plans, college tuition reimbursements, bonuses, holiday and holiday payments, work accident insurance, and any other compensation other than standard compensation.
Step 5. Talk about technology issues
Any current manual must take this into consideration. This means that you must indicate the company's guidelines regarding the use of mobile phones, laptops, personal digital diaries, e-mails, social networks and internet browsing in the workplace.
Step 6. Indicate the employment termination policy
You should list step-by-step the steps the company will take to address or remedy any rule transgressions. It should end with a statement: the company reserves the right to end the employment relationship when it deems it most appropriate.
Advice
- You can find numerous free employee policy templates online, and you can customize them to create your own.
- Regularly update your employee handbook. Remember that businesses (and technologies) change and grow over time. In principle, it is appropriate to review the regulation every two years to make any necessary changes or updates. Also, ask current employees to contribute something they find unclear.
- There are several programs designed to help business owners create customized business manuals.
- Ask a specialist attorney to review the regulation before making it public to make sure you are not using language or expressions that could cause legal disputes.
Warnings
- When writing the manual, do not try to insert important information from specific documents (such as accident insurance data, contribution laws, etc.). Instead, include a reference that points to supporting documents to be sourced externally.
- If you include company policies in the manual, remember that they must then be seriously adhered to and enforced for every employee who receives the document. Otherwise, you risk legal consequences. For example, if you include a policy in your manual that managers must complete employee performance reviews every six months in order to make any increases, you need to implement that purpose. Likewise, you need to be sure that every employee is subject to the same review.
