Legal Center expert provides tips and an outline for creating an employee handbook for your small business
The latest Small Business Rundown podcast features NFIB Small Business Legal Center Executive Director Elizabeth Milito sharing tips and guidance for small businesses to develop an employee handbook. Milito emphasizes the importance of creating a personalized handbook that reflects company culture while meeting all federal, state, and local compliance standards. As part of the NFIB Legal Guide Series, Milito shared the updated “Guide to the Employee Handbook,” a customizable template for small business owners, is now available for download as both a Word document and PDF. The guide can also be found online at the NFIB Small Business Legal Center’s webpage.
“It is important for small businesses to have an employee handbook,” said Milito. “It shares with new and existing employees the company’s culture, vision, and mission. It also gets everyone on the same page with the policy and workplace rules and alleviates disputes.”
Policies that should be included in these handbooks, according to Milito, are the company’s history, an employment statement, a non-discrimination and no-harassment policy, along with telework and social media guidelines.
Milito shared that updating the employee handbook on a yearly basis is best practice as it creates consistency and limits your business’s liability. She further noted that these handbooks need not be overly complex or lengthy, emphasizing the importance of using easy to understand language and taking a “less is more” approach.
Listen to hear more about the Small Business Employee Handbook. The podcast “Small Business Employee Handbook” is available at Small Business Rundown Podcast – NFIB. NFIB’s Guide to the Employee Handbook is a free resource available to kickstart the process of creating or updating a handbook for every small business.
