The Truth About Employee Handbooks
Let’s be real: most employee handbooks are not good, and many are downright bad. Aggressively bad. Some miss the mark completely or are written in incomprehensible legal gobbledygook. Way too many go on for an unfathomable number of pages. Others bore their readers to tears or don’t take the time to consider their audience when they’re written.
A 2020 study revealed that approximately 60% of employees avoid reading employee handbooks. The same study also found that a similar percentage of HR employees struggle to get their team members to read and sign off on employee handbooks. No surprise there…
The good news? That trend ends today!
In this guide—the most important employee handbook guide you’ll ever come across—we’re going to explore what Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) set out to achieve with these documents, why they tend to come up short, and which core elements (and policies) need to be included in yours. After that, we’re going to take a look at 10 exceptional employee handbook examples and 3 that are just awful.
When we’re finished, you’ll have all the tools and knowledge to create an engaging and modern employee handbook that incorporates best practices and resonates with your team members. Follow this guide closely enough and who knows—we might just be featuring yours as a shining example in future iterations.
What CHROs Set Out to Achieve With Their Employee Handbooks
A strong employee handbook serves as the backbone of a successful scaling organization. Yes, they outline policies, procedures, and guidelines. Yes, they set clear expectations for team member conduct, attendance, and performance. And yes, they provide a wealth of useful employment and administrative information. But they’re also capable of so much more.
An effective handbook can:
- Clarify employer and employee rights
- Minimize legal risks and liabilities
- Present your company’s culture
- Detail benefits, leave eligibilities, wellness packages, and perks
- Set the tone from the jump during onboarding
- Serve as a training tool
- Facilitate compliance
- Promote transparency, trust, and accountability
- Boost employee engagement
The best handbooks accomplish all of the above, and CHROs tend to strive for most, if not all, of the bullet points on that list. The issue comes down to planning, implementation, and using problematic employee handbook templates and examples as a starting off point.
Why So Many Employee Handbooks Miss The Mark
This section could truly be its own guide. It was also one of the most difficult to write given how many different types of gaffes and errors we’ve come across in our corner of the industry. But there are a handful of recurring, fundamental problems that always seem to rear their heads, causing employee handbooks to miss the mark; often, by a wide margin.
Let’s go over a few:
They’re Too Legal
If you have terms like “heretofore”, “notwithstanding”, or “henceforth referred to” anywhere in your employee handbook, it’s too legal for your team members. Your employees shouldn’t need to be lawyers or employment law experts to understand what’s being communicated to them. They need to know the basics, what’s expected of them, what they need to do to comply, and what happens if they violate a certain policy. This information should be laid out clearly, in simple terms that HUMANS use. After all, what’s the point of asking your team members to read and sign off on policies they don’t understand? And how can you hold them accountable for violating policies if they aren’t aware they’re doing so?
No, we’re not advocating for attorneys to be left out of the drafting process. Their input is extremely important and will shield your business from legal risk and liabilities. But that doesn’t mean you should copy and paste whatever language they provide you.
Rewrite it into your own words. Make it readable. Make it comprehensible. And make it relatable.
They Aren’t Being Updated Regularly
Employee handbooks aren’t instant pots or alarm clocks. You can’t simply set them and forget them. They need to be reviewed and updated regularly because things change over time—whether it’s your policies, workplace, state/federal laws and regulations, or social norms.
At the very minimum, CHROs should be conducting a comprehensive review and updating their employee handbooks once per year. This will allow your organization to stay up to date with legal updates, incorporate emerging technology and social media policies, consider other trending workplace trends, contemporize your benefit, perk, and leave offerings, refine your training requirements, and more.
It only takes one outdated sentence for an employee to dismiss your entire handbook as archaic and irrelevant to their needs. So make sure you schedule a review/update period each year—or once per quarter if you really want to make sure you’re covering all your bases.
They’re Too Long
When it comes to blurb length or the overall length of your handbook, less is typically more. Not always, of course! But the general rule of thumb (for most writing; not just employee handbooks) is if you can say it in fewer words, you’re better off doing so. The same concept applies for how long your handbook should be from cover to cover.
Remember, you’re not writing a novel or a dissertation here. If you have the ability to condense the length of your employee handbook by grouping similar policies onto one page or summarizing a concept upfront and linking to the full details elsewhere, you should consider it!
You can blame social media or television, but the fact remains: the average US adult reads 12 books per year and has a reading attention span of 8 seconds. That’s not a lot of wiggle room to work with. In fact, it probably took you longer than that to read the previous two sentences. So be economical with your words and your page length. It will pay dividends.
The Tone Is Wrong
The fact that you’ve made it this far in the guide is proof that conversational tones work. Not only do they lighten the mood, they also make policies easier to understand. Plus, they resonate with your team members—regardless of age or background—because it’s much closer to the way we, as humans, speak to each other.
When writing their employee handbooks, most CHROs strive to recreate the same type of tone they would have if they were speaking to an employee 1-on-1. We can verify that first-hand, given our experience writing handbooks for our clients.
The issue typically is that despite their vast proficiencies in all things related to human resources, most CHROs aren’t skilled writers. Nor should they be; they didn’t go to school for that. But school isn’t everything. Here’s a few tricks of the trade you can try to leverage to achieve that more casual, laid-back tone:
- First-Person Plural – Instead of referring to your business by name or as “The Company” throughout your employee handbook, try “we” or “our” instead.
- Contractions, Contractions, Contractions – Replace “we are”, “cannot”, and “it is” with “we’re”, “can’t”, and “isn’t”. Sure, these are small tweaks, but they go a long way!
- You – Don’t refer to your team members in the third person throughout your employee handbook, unless you want them to feel as removed from the document as possible. Speak to them directly in the second person, using “you” as much as possible.
- Turns of Phrase – We understand that these were no-nos when writing high-school English essays. But those days are long over and you’re no longer writing for an academic audience. Expressions and cliched terms are important if you’re going for a conversational, folksy tone. Try inserting terms like “break the ice”, “drop of a hat”, “elephant in the room”, “hands down”, and “piece of cake.”
- Jokes & Puns – No one is saying you need to write stand-up material, but the addition of a little humor into your copy really helps to lighten the mood. This one is obviously not appropriate for every page of your employee handbook, but it is an effective way to keep your readers’ attention. So pick and choose your spots wisely!
It’s Not Modern
We’re not talking about policies here. We mean the format you’ve chosen—especially if you’ve decided to create a traditional PDF document stuffed with walls of text throughout.
Modern employee handbooks are digital documents filled with interactive components and multimedia capabilities. They’re beautifully and strategically designed, ordered optimally, and reinforced by intuitive search and reference features that enable employees to pinpoint policies immediately and with ease.
These aren’t even progressive elements anymore. Most employees expect to see at least some—if not all—of the aspects mentioned above. If not, they’re more likely to dismiss your entire handbook as outdated and not worthy of their time and effort.
Elements That Should Be Included in Your Employee Handbook
There’s no golden rule for what needs to be included in your employee handbook. But the best examples we’ve encountered all incorporate the same 6 elements:
Welcome Note
Set the tone and your business’s expectations from the top with a personalized welcome note to your employees. It doesn’t matter if it’s their first day there or their 25th work anniversary, a welcome note creates a positive first impression, fosters a personal connection right off the bat, and humanizes your company.
Everything else is up to you, including the content, the message conveyed, and who signs it at the bottom.
AirMason tip: Do away with a traditional text welcome message and opt for a video one instead.
Culture Section
Don’t just jump into your policies right away. Bridge that welcome note with a culture section. What you decide to include here is up to you, but we’ve never come across one that doesn’t include values and mission. From there, the sky’s the limit.
Articulate what your business believes in and the qualities team members need to thrive. Detail your business’s accomplishments over the years and how it got to be where it is today. Take some time to explain how your team supports its employees both at work and away from the office. Sprinkle in some testimonials about what it’s like to work there. There’s really no wrong way to do it other than not doing it at all.
Compensation Policies
Money may not be the only thing that motivates your employees, but it’s likely the biggest factor, so make sure you include this information clearly and prominently in your handbook.
Your employees will want to know how and when they get paid, how overtime works at your company, what deductions are automatically taken from their paychecks, what timekeeping requirements they need to follow, how bonuses are determined and paid out, etc. This information should be easily accessible and crystal clear, although we don’t recommend placing it right at the beginning.
More on that in a bit…
Benefits, Perks & Leave Information
Along with compensation, these are the policies your employees are mainly looking for. Many handbooks provide general summaries of their offerings with no specifics, opting to link out to fuller packages with more details instead.
We don’t recommend that approach for three reasons: (a) it’s more reading for your team members, (b) it’s yet another document (or more) that they’ll need to get through, and (c) it’s anticlimactic and a bit of a let down for your employees who have diligently made their way through dozens of policies only to get a mere snapshot of the information they’re after. It’s enough to take the wind out of their sails for the remainder of the document.
That’s not to say you need to list out every detail of every leave and benefit. But you should list in their entirety all of the benefits, insurance coverages, and leaves your company offers so your team members can see what they’re eligible for and plan accordingly.
Code of Conduct
What’s allowed and what’s not at your business can’t be left up to interpretation. This is, without a doubt, the most important element to include as team members need to know the rules from day one.
Whether it’s a single list of do’s and don’ts or an entire section devoted to behavior and professionalism is your choice. Just make sure it covers the following (in no particular order):
- Harassment, discrimination, and bullying
- Conflicts of interest
- Ethics
- Workplace violence
- Weapons
- Solicitation & distribution
- Confidentiality
- Substance abuse
- Disciplinary process
Conflict Resolution & Grievance Procedures
Teamwork makes the dream work, but working in close quarters can also cause workplace conflicts and friction. All the more reason to codify and publish how your business resolves these issues and the process team members need to follow when lodging official complaints or concerns.
These policies encourage open communication, promote fairness and consistency, and give your team members an outlet to express concerns without the fear of retaliation.
Modern Policies You Can’t Ignore
We already took a few minutes to discuss some ways to modernize your employee handbook with multimedia components. Let’s now take a few more to identify some trending modern policies your business cannot afford to overlook:
Flexible Work Arrangements
COVID-19 changed the working world, as we know it, forever. Although not every business has gone fully remote in its wake, most have adopted flexible work arrangements to help their team members achieve better work-life balances. These can consist of anything from remote and hybrid work policies to alternative/staggered hours and compressed workweeks.
Mental Health & Wellness Support
The goal for most human resources departments is increased mental health initiatives and wellness support in the workplace. There are many ways to achieve this for your team members—from flexible work arrangements and comprehensive benefit packages to a variety of perks and offerings that promote employee wellbeing, both at work and away from the office.
Cybersecurity & Data Protection
In 2017, The Economist claimed that data had surpassed gold and oil as the world’s most valuable commodity. In the interim, it’s only gotten more valuable. The bad news is your company’s proprietary and team member data—as well as that of your customers, vendors, stakeholders, etc.—is highly coveted online by hackers, competitors, and bad-faith actors.
Securing your digital assets, data, and trade secrets has never been more important, which is why it’s absolutely crucial your team members understand cybersecurity requirements, best practices, and what’s expected of them when using your networks, devices, and software.
Social Media
Once published, a social media post is very much like toothpaste: despite your best efforts, you can never quite stuff it back into the tube. Things live forever on the Internet—for better or worse—and that can have direct ramifications for your team members. One thoughtless or callous post can result in significant blowback on them, not to mention irreparable damage to your company’s reputation.
To protect your team members and your company’s bottom line, you’ll need to include a social media policy that’s unambiguous, easy-to-understand, and accessible.
The 3 Keys to Building a Successful Employee Handbook
So far, we’ve covered why employee handbooks typically miss the mark, which core elements should be included in these documents, and four modern policies current businesses should consider incorporating into their own.
That’s a nice foundation to start from, but there’s still a trio of questions you’ll need to ask yourself before getting underway.
Who are the stakeholders and collaborators for this project?
Before you write a single word, it’s so important to determine who will be working on your employee handbook—and in what capacity? In our experience, the idea that “too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the broth” rings particularly true when creating these documents. And everyone seems to have their own strong takes when it comes to creative collateral, which can cause everything from disagreements and indecision to unproductiveness and missed deadlines.
Defining clear roles and responsibilities from the jump—and holding team members accountable to them—will help you avoid these problems and make for a much smoother creative process.
Are all your policies current?
The best advice we could give you would be not to start your project until your policies are up to date. Updating them on the fly as you go will take longer than you think, delay the project as a whole, and almost surely send you plunging down some rabbit holes you didn’t expect.
Preparation is key. That’s why chefs prep before they cook, athletes study their competition before they play, and writers research their topics before putting a single word down on the page.
The same concept applies here. If your policies are in order, you’re ready to go. If not, take the time before you start to finalize them, even if it means a few extra weeks consulting with your legal team or an outside consultant. It will save you tons of time and frustration in the long run.
Have you established a brand identity to showcase throughout your handbook?
From visuals to tone, your brand identity will be front and center throughout your employee handbook. If your business hasn’t established one yet, take the time to do so before you get started. Otherwise, you’ll be putting the cart before the horse.
As we mentioned earlier, the culture section is an essential element of every employee handbook, bridging your welcome note and policies. It’s the heart of your document, and it needs to come across genuinely.
Writing authentic cultural content without a brand identity to pull from will almost always result in wildly inconsistent messaging, writing styles, and tone—and your employees will pick up on it.
10 Excellent Employee Handbook Examples
Human Made
The Human Made handbook won’t be winning any Red Dot Design Awards anytime soon, but it is the perfect example of a well-strategized, organized, and communicated online employee handbook. The handbook includes comprehensive rundowns of Human Made’s culture, policies, procedures, and even its branded collateral. There is a lot to take in, but an intuitive search function at the top right of the handbook makes zeroing in on a specific policy or rule very easy.
Trello
Hello, Trello! Who knew our favorite project management software could also be used to host one of the more creative employee handbooks we’ve ever come across? Doing so in this digital format allowed the company to achieve two things: (1) an employee handbook that’s simple to navigate and even easier to read and understand, and (2) an opportunity for new hires to learn their platform intimately in the process.
Valve
This one is technically a culture guide, but we still included it in this list because it’s so well done! Over the course of 37 beautifully designed pages, new hires are taken through Valve’s orientation process (via FAQs), organizational structures and hierarchies, the business’s philosophies on taking risks, working independently, growing professionally, and more. The text, albeit long at some points, is broken up nicely by headers, subheaders, and images so readers don’t get overwhelmed or exhausted. Plus, the copy is engaging, colloquial, and written in first-personal plural to humanize the company and text.
Basecamp/37signals
We’ll admit it: this handbook is a little on the long side, without a hint of design, and is 100% guilty of providing its team members with dessert before dinner by placing their compensation and benefits section up front. We’d advise against that simply because most employees are after that information—and there’s no guarantee they’ll continue reading your handbook once they get it. That said, this is a strong example of the marriage between a traditional handbook and a modern format. Sure, it’s not optimized for searching, but it is digitally oriented, well structured and thought out, and comprehensive. The copy is written in short blurbs, composed of short sentences that are easy to read. Plus there are lots of headers throughout to break up the copy and eliminate those dreaded walls of text.
Memoria Visual
Portuguese development agency Memoria Visual’s culture guide also doesn’t qualify as an employee handbook but it’s so beautiful, original, and cute that we had to include it here. This is a document you need to see to believe. At core, it explains what their company is all about and stands for, using animated drawings of rocket ships, adorable aliens, astronauts, skunks, kangaroos, scrabble boards, robots, and—of course—Pluto! The overall message: everyone wants to fly to the moon or Mars. Memoria Visual has its sight set on traveling further, being bolder, and uncharted new ground.
HubSpot
LIke Valve, HubSpot’s employee handbook is actually more of a culture guide. It’s basically a slide show, consisting of short, poignant copy and images throughout its 128 pages. It’s not a great resource for employees seeking policies, procedures, and workplace information, but it does a wonderful job explaining what HubSpot is, what they believe in, and what they look for in team members. The takeaway after scrolling through those 128 slides, other than carpal tunnel syndrome? HubSpot looks like a very fun place to work—and that was probably their intention when they created this document.
Zappos
Zappos wins the creativity award among the handbooks on this list. We would have never thought it was even possible to transform your culture, policies, and procedures into a comic book format, but Zappos knocked it out of the park! The Zappos employee handbook is designed to stand out and be remembered, with stunning imagery throughout and policies that are told as stories, not rules.
The Motley Fool
The Motley Fool may have a very basic PDF design and also be guilty of the dessert-before-main course gaffe, but their handbook nails it from just about every other perspective. The copy consists of short, engaging blurbs written in a casual and conversational tone. But what really stands out is the humor and puns everywhere—not to mention the fun asides in the margins of the document. Plus, it’s extremely economical, with 30 topics sufficiently covered in just 16 pages!
Disney
Disney’s OG handbook was written in 1943 and is currently out of circulation (for a number of valid reasons). But to this day it remains a shining example of a wonderfully creative handbook that encapsulates so many of the core elements we discussed earlier. With cartoon iconography on every page, first person references to the company, an engaging tone, brief copy, and zero legalese, it truly was decades ahead of its time.
Pronto Marketing
Pronto’s handbook doesn’t pull any punches. It’s the definition of a short, informative handbook that’s designed to get its readers from beginning to end in one go. It doesn’t exist to entertain them, nor does it really try to at any point—although we do love the fact that they refer to their team members as “Protons”. That said, the information is well communicated, website oriented, digitally optimized, and conducive to keyword searching.
Sterling
Sterling’s employee handbook ticks all the boxes. It starts with a letter from its CEO, delves a bit into the company’s culture, takes new hires through an overview of its onboarding process, outlines a few digital tools everyone uses, and then goes straight into its policies. But even the policies are presented at a high level in short blurbs that communicate basic information to its team members.
There are a few walls of text throughout and a few missed opportunities to store the more detailed aspects of policies in collapsible panels. But the design is colorful, sleek, and modern enough to offset those issues, resulting in an engaging handbook that’s easy to read and anything but intimidating.
3 Employee Handbook Examples You Should Avoid
Okay, we’ve looked at 10 strong examples of handbooks and culture guides that you should consider borrowing from or using as inspiration when creating your own. Now, let’s go over 3 examples you should steer clear of—albeit for different reasons:
Tesla
Tesla has always been known for pushing boundaries and envelopes, so it’s not exactly surprising that they followed suit with their employee handbook—aptly named “The Anti-Handbook Handbook”. The problem is that it’s only four pages long, which simply doesn’t cut it from a legal perspective for a company that employs 120,000+ people. Leaving out crucial employment policies via this “too-cool-for-school” approach opens the door to potential legal issues down the line. Not surprisingly, Tesla is currently facing a slew of workplace discrimination lawsuits in California. We’re not saying the absence of these policies led to these lawsuits, but the whole point of including them in your handbook is to protect your business from situations like this!
GitLab
We’ve come across a few employee handbook example lists before that framed GitLab’s handbook in a positive light—and we’re not really sure why. Perhaps the information is well communicated by being laid out in wiki format or the tone is engaging? We simply wouldn’t know because at over 13,800 pages in length, we were too intimidated to even click the link. The longest handbook we had previously come across was 265 pages, which is already way too long. Imagine being a new hire there and clicking that link or worse: trying to retain what you’ve just read!
UBS
Swiss banks are known for low financial risks and high levels of privacy and financial protection. But the Union Bank of Switzerland has another claim to fame: a 43-page dress code in its employee handbook. That’s not an exaggeration—and obviously we had to peruse it for ourselves to see what they went on about at such length. In case you were wondering, it covers fresh breath, lingerie and stockings, tie and scarf knots, and posture. Another example you need to see for yourself to believe!
Creating Your Employee Handbook on AirMason
AirMason is widely considered the HR industry’s go-to platform for creating and hosting modern, digital employee handbooks.
Our intuitive design templates and Editor simplify the process for any CHROs wishing to go it alone. And for those looking for some assistance, we offer a variety of service offerings—ranging from policy drafting and copywriting services to sleek, brand-aligned designs—that will transform your employee handbook into a work of art. Not to mention, our onboarding specialists and dedicated Customer Success team are here to assist you every step of the way up to, and beyond, launch!
Our platform is mobile and computer compatible, integrates with most HRIS platforms for easy, yet secure SSO employee access, and allows you to assign other collaborators and stakeholders to your project. AirMason also offers automatic policy updates for all 50 US states, so your policies are always up to date and compliant with municipal, county, state, and federal laws.
Frequently Asked Questions
An employee handbook is a document that outlines your company’s policies, procedures, and responsibilities, as well as your employees’ rights and obligations.
Does my employee handbook need to be a certain length?
There are no set length requirements for a handbook. But as we saw from the examples above, 4 pages is certainly on the short end and anywhere near 13,000 is simply too long.
Why do most employee handbooks miss the mark?
Most employee handbooks fail to resonate with their audiences because they’re either too legal, too long, too stuffy or boring, aren’t formatted in a modern way, or aren’t up-to-date in terms of policies.
Which elements should be included in all employee handbooks?
The six elements your handbook must include are a welcome note, a culture section, compensation policies, a grievance and conflict resolution policy, and information about benefits, perks, and leaves.
What are the three keys to writing an employee handbook?
Start off by determining who the stakeholders and collaborators on your project are. Next, verify if your policies are up to date or whether you will need to do so before getting underway. Finally, establish your business’s brand identity. Once these three boxes are ticked, you’re on your way!
Do small businesses need employee handbooks, too?
We believe every business benefits from having an employee handbook, as it helps to streamline communication and sets clear expectations for all of your team members.
