HR professionals highlight the importance of employee handbook within the organization
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
Perhaps you bootstrapped your small manufacturing company.
As the business grew, you took on relatives and close friends. Then friends of friends.
Eventually, you had to hire from the general public.
While it’s great to reach this level as a manufacturer, you really should have written human resources policies and procedures for managing people.
“If they start with family and start adding people, having that foundation is a nice tool for supervisors and managers,” said Janine Corea, vice president of HR management services for HR Works in Syracuse. “As the organization grows, they’re able to make sure they’re consistent. It’s a time saver if they have a resource to look at about benefits or who to talk with if they have leave so they don’t have to go ask the owner or manager and create constant interruptions. The policy book is a starting point.”
Standardizing policies and procedures can help a company grow and retain top talent rather than appearing like they operate by the seat of their pants. Corea encourages companies to not look at HR policy like an unwanted layer of bureaucracy, but as tools to build sustainable trust and fairness. Implementing the policies fairly matters as well.
“If they’re not implementing them fairly, that’s where you run into problems,” Corea said. “They don’t get sued over policies but your practices: the actions you’re taking or not taking.”
Jeff Smith, senior HR consultant with HR One in East Syracuse, believes that in addition to compliance, employee handbook is an “easy resource” to share laws and regulations with employees. Smith also views an employee handbook as a way to offer expectations for both employees and employers. Everyone knows what should happen and how to handle things when things don’t go right.
Smith said that some people feel that an HR manual snuffs out company culture by making the business feel too “corporate” but he believes the opposite: an HR manual can help establish the company’s culture.
“Setting expectations for a healthy workplace culture in the beginning will help to create a cohesive team environment as the business grows,” Smith said. “Waiting to do that until later may result in missed opportunities.”
By building more structure into the company, it can better weather tough times and unusual circumstances. New hires can better know how they can help promote the company’s goals and more wizened employees can continue to grow as the company changes.
You may acknowledge the importance of having employee policies, but what should these entail?
Bob Rodgers, principal consultant and founder of 3C Human Resources Consulting, LLC in Syracuse, tells his clients that “communication, compliance and consistency” are key, “particularly as small companies start to grow, and there are more and more people, communication is extremely important.”
Your family and close friends already understand your values and expectations. New hires from outside your circle won’t.
It also pays to have policies so that you can protect your company.
“Policies help to ensure that employees are aware of their rights and benefits in the workplace,” Rodgers said. “For example, letting employees know they’re treated equally and not discriminated against based on protected categories. The employees should know the company is aware of it. The managers and supervisors should be aware. We don’t treat people differently because of those factors.”
Some policies such as regarding sexual harassment and protected statuses, must be published for the company to legally operate. Policies can also prevent lawsuits regarding preferential treatment since documenting adherence to policies can help prove everyone is treated the same.
“Follow the same consistent process for hiring, onboarding, how you treat people for performance evaluations and leave of absence,” Rodgers said. “Consistency is important. There’s going to be times where employers need to make exceptions or they haven’t had a particular issue. That’s part of policy development. Let employes know we may need to make an exception to this policy. As long as it isn’t based on a discriminatory category, sometimes those have to happen in small companies.”
Rodgers considers an employee manual a “living document” in the sense that it’s always evolving to meet the company’s and employees’ needs. He advises reviewing the policies and manual annually. Everyone should sign a statement that indicates receipt and understanding of the policy manual.
It may seem tempting to download a policy manual and call it official; however, Rodgers said that a few areas in manufacturing are different from other industries, particularly related to safety issues. A custom policy manual can also better represent the company culture than one that’s “cookie cutter.”
