Contracts and Employee Handbooks

Providing Essential Information To Working At Your Business

Employee Handbooks are a vital document during the initial period of employment as they provide new employees with essential information about working at your company and introduce them to your culture and values. The importance of the employee handbook doesn’t end their though, it continues throughout the employees’ period of employment with you as it will be the first place the employee turns to for information about specific policies such as taking time off work for a funeral or a hospital appointment.

There is a legal requirement to provide every employee with a written statement detailing their terms and conditions of employment. The statement should contain specific information to meet the legal requirements but beyond that should protect your business, there might also be industry or job specific clauses that are required.

Your Employee Handbook will support your employment contract by setting out how employees are expected to conduct themselves, who they can turn to if they need support, and what they can expect from you as their employer or manager. It will also provide information about everything from driving on company business, housekeeping arrangements and building security.

I have worked with companies from a wide range of sectors to either introduce a new contract and employee handbook or update their existing contract and employee handbook. So, whether you’re looking to create brand-new documents, or update your existing documents I can help you.

Importance Of Having A Contract of Employment

There is a legal requirement to provide specific information to employees on or before their first day of employment. The information must be provided in one document and it is commonly known as the ‘section one statement‘ as it’s a requirement of section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. On top of that minimum requirement, you will want to refer to your Equality, H&S and GDPR policies if nothing else.

As well as the legal requirement to provide information to a new starter, the employment contract forms the basis of the employment relationship between the employer and their employees. Coupled with the employee handbook, the contract ensures that the employee understands what to expect from you and what is required from them right from the beginning; so there are no misunderstandings.

Without a deduction from wages clause in the Contract you would not be allowed, without reaching agreement with the employee, to deduct money from their wages for loss or damage to company property, overpayments and in the case of leavers for over taken holiday or costs for training you’ve paid for.

Benefits Of Having An Employee Handbook

Although there is a legal requirement to document your terms and conditions of employment there is no such requirement to have an employee handbook. There are however many benefits to having an Employee Handbook.

Key benefits of an employee handbook:

Protects Your Business

Your employee handbook will help minimise the chance of you ending up in a potentially costly employment tribunal because clear, well-defined policies help you make decisions more quickly, confidently, and consistently. When your employee handbook carefully spells out your employment policies both managers and staff know where they stand and misunderstandings will occur less frequently. If an employee is confused about your expectations, then resolving that confusion will be straight forward. If you do receive a tribunal claim your employee handbook will you help you demonstrate that you clearly communicated your expectations and policies to the employee. It may seem like an unnecessary expense but the cost of preparing a Handbook would be considerably less than the time spent preparing for and defending a claim at a tribunal.

Supports Your Contract of Employment

Your Employee Handbook should support your employment contract by setting out how employees are expected to conduct themselves, who they can turn to if they need support, and what they can expect from you as their employer or manager. It also provides information about everything from company policies to employee benefits and housekeeping arrangements.

Provides Clarity and Consistency

Your employee handbook will be a vital reference tool for new employees as they quickly familiarise themselves with information about their role, responsibilities, benefits and company policies; it will also help them to understand your culture and values. When you put your policies in writing your employees will feel they are being applied fairly and consistently and employees cannot say you didn’t tell them it wasn’t acceptable to do something.

Your handbook will also prevent confusion which could lead to head-aches, grievances and ultimately tribunal claims. Imagine if one employee pops in your office and asks you about carrying over a few days annual holiday, you have a chat with them about workload and agree to the carry over. Later that day as you are rushing out of the office to a meeting another employee sees you waiting for the lift and says they have too much holiday left over and you say ‘you’ll fit it in’. Those two employees have a chat and you come into work the next day to a situation to sort out before you get on with running your business.

Saves Your Time

When an employee has a question their first point of call will be your employee handbook not you. If we take the carry of holiday example already used, both employees would look in the employee handbook and read the same information, avoiding any confusion. And if one of them came to you and asked the question, you simply and politely refer them to the handbook. Having a reference point where employees can check out the answers to simple and repetitive questions rather than having to ask you will really save your time and ensure every employee receives the same answer to the same question. Freeing up your time to focus on other priorities.

Have a question about your Employee Handbook?

How Kea HR Can Help Your Business

Your Contract of Employment and Employee Handbook will be written in Plain English, so your employee’s will find the content easy to understand. I don’t deliver ‘one size fits all’ documents, the content of your Contract of Employment and Employee Handbook will be tailored to reflect your working practices. For instance, you may want to clarify your expectations regarding attendance at work and payment for non-attendance during a period of adverse weather conditions. You will also want to describe the employment policies you will follow when dealing with common HR issues such as disciplinary matters and unsatisfactory levels of attendance at work.

Both documents will be tailored to suit your industry; if you are a retail business then customer service and cash handling will be important to you and if you are a catering business then you will want to ensure your employees are familiar with your health and hygiene rules.

There are many options for how you present the final documents; they include: printed in house and presented in ring binders, printed professionally and presented as a bound booklet and created electronically on an intranet or internet. (electronic versions are much easier and quicker to update and republish). Many of my clients ask me to create PDF versions and simply email them to new or existing employees. Your Employee Handbook will be provided in the format you choose for instance Microsoft Word, Publisher or HTML.

If you choose to go ahead with printed copies of your Employee Handbook you can make arrangements with your usual printer. Alternatively, I have a number of clients who are printers who would be happy to provide a quote for the work.

Finally, if you have employees whose first language is not English, I can arrange for your Employee Handbook to be translated into the appropriate language(s).

Outsourcing the writing of your employee handbook to me allows you to focus on what you know best.

Employee Handbook Packages

I offer competitive rates for drafting Contracts of Employment and Employee Handbooks.

If you have a blank piece of paper, we will need to have a chat about how much information needs adding to that. If you have documents in place but they are out of date we will need to have a chat about what works, what is no longer relevant and what has changed or needs changing for instance the absence policy you implemented when you had a small number of employees is probably no longer relevant if you now have 30+ employees.

All documents are provided in electronic format using Microsoft Word.

I offer two fixed price packages for producing your Contract of Employment and Employee Handbook:

Ready To Go Package

My Ready To Go Package is ideal for new businesses and those on the tightest of budgets. The package provides a simple but professional:

Contract of Employment that complies with the legal requirements; and
Employee Handbook, covering the essentials like GDPR, Equality and Diversity, Time off Work and Discipline and Grievance.
Template letters for issuing new documents to your employees.