Employee Handbooks:
A Key Piece of Your
HR Infrastructure
What to include and how to
effectively present your company’s
policies and procedures
By Dawn Hillrud, Knibbs/associates Sourcing People and Knibbs/associates HR Consulting
Much like operations, IT, strategy and marketing –
human resources (HR) is a major component of
any business infrastructure. In fact, HR can be one
of the most complicated components of this infrastructure. Why?
People are more dynamic in thoughts and actions than an adver-tising
campaign. When you have 10 people, you have 10 opinions
on how something should be; thus the need for a common under-standing
of HR matters and how they will be handled – a common
HR infrastructure.
One of the easiest ways to manage the HR component of your
business is by providing clear, concise and consistent direction and
guidelines. A good way to provide this direction is through HR pol-icy
and/or an employee handbook. With a handbook, every em-ployee
receives the same information about the workplace and
employees are all aware of the same set of rules. Further, handbooks
can lower your liability risk as the handbook becomes an important
document that illustrates you have done your due diligence, as long
as you can prove that you provided it to your staff and they have, in
fact, read it.
In developing your handbook, first and foremost, you must com-ply
with and meet the applicable provincial and federal legislation.
Secondly, the handbook should provide a tool for employees to re-fer
to in dealing with day-to-day issues. Basically, your handbook is a
set of policies, procedures and rules that employees must know and
HR DEPARTMENT
follow. Some suggestions on areas you should cover in your hand-book
are:
• Harassment – what is harassment and what to do if
you are harassed or have witnessed a harassment
• Leaves – details on leaves, especially those you
provide that are not legislated (vacation time is
legislated but paid education leave often is not)
• Employee benefits – a list of employee benefits as
well as contact information for employees to use
when they have questions about benefits
• Performance management – a description of your performance
planning processes and guidelines for managers on the
process to plan, evaluate and measure performance
• Discipline – the processes that underperforming employees
will go through to improve their work and/or the process that
managers should follow in implementing progressive discipline
• Confidentiality – a list of confidential information your
employees may be privy to, as well as an explanation for
how employees can and should handle this information
• Conflict resolution/problem solving – guidelines for employees
and managers to follow when dealing with a conflict or a problem
• Technology in the workplace – what are your
standards on the use of personal and company cell
phones, texting and Internet during work hours
“A good handbook will reflect your company’s culture
and will communicate the values of your organization.”
SUMKINN/SHUTTERSTOCK
saskheavy.ca | Quarter 3 2016 | Think BIG 57
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