Human Resources Skills: Employee Handbooks

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Course Overview

Should anything ever go wrong, an employee handbook can help to prove that you explained your rules to your employees, and acted fairly in accordance with set policies and procedures. Demonstrating that your handbook contains the right policies and procedures can be invaluable when faced with litigation.

The employee handbook communicates how you deal with issues such as harassment, discrimination, absence, family friendly rights, and other personnel matters. It also tells employees about performance expectations, and provides good evidence that the employee knows that certain conduct can result in discipline or dismissal.

This unique, highly interactive seminar takes you through what you need to include in your handbook by working through key policies, procedures and other common elements in order to help you to customise a final version suitable for your requirements.You will leave the course with a disk version of the handbook studied during the workshop which you may then tailor further to meet your needs.

Audience

All those concerned with the introduction of employee handbooks in the workplace, including:

• HR directors and managers
• HR directors and managers
• HR and personnel officers and assistants
• In-house legal advisers
• Senior managers

Course Outline

Why have an employee handbook at all?

• Advantages and disadvantages
• Benefits
• What are the alternative options?

The legal standing of employee handbooks

• To whom should it apply?
• Contractually binding?
• Implied or express
• Incorporated?
• The relationship to contracts of employment

How to make changes to handbooks legally

• Introducing change
• The change management process
• Policy change vs. contract change?
• The need for agreement
• Introduction as opposed to revision
• Methods of change available
• Optionsavailable to employees in the absence of agreement
• Options available to employers in the absence of agreement

Communications

• Ensure management commitment
• Ensure access to all
• Train managers to ensure they know the contents and how to apply the various policies and procedures contained therein
• Communicating changes

The key areas a handbook should cover

• Analysis of a typical contents list
• Key policies and procedures
• What legally needs to be supplied to employees
• Structure
• Optional extras

An understanding of the essential policies and procedures and how they may be applied in practice

After lunch, and by way of an interactive session, we will concentrate on practical and legal issues by considering some of the most commonly accessed parts of the handbook, and look at how those parts are applied in practice.

This is usually areas relating to:

• Absence management
• Discipline and dismissal issues
• Poor performance, capability problems
• Complaints at work i.e. grievance, harassment and bullying
• Redundancy
• Family friendly rights, including:
• Maternity
• Paternity
• Parental
• Dependant
• Request for flexible working, etc

Handbook workshop - individual questions and queries answered

Human Resources Skills: Employee Handbooks / HR-DR