Your employee handbook is for employee use, yet all too often this manual does not resonate with or engage its target audience: Your employees. When developing an employee handbook, why not involve your employees in the process to make this manual as effective and relevant to them as possible? Below are some fresh ideas on how forward-thinking companies can make employee input part of the employee manual development process.
In order to create an engaging handbook, it’s important to follow 6 tips to make an employee handbook that employees will actually read. Why not involve your employees in the process to make this manual as effective and relevant to them as possible?
Use a Focus Group
Before finalizing your employee handbook, circulate it to existing employees or to a focus group of employees to get feedback and insights on what they think will work and what may need to be tweaked. This way, you can ensure that your company culture is well-represented in the handbook and that it truly reflects the values and beliefs of your organization. For more tips on improving company culture, check out this helpful article.
focus group a handful of established employees with diverse roles and perspectives and ask for their comments/feedback. You may find that some information should be made more prominent, or certain photos/visuals resonate while others don t. Using a focus group is a great exercise to do when updating an existing employee handbook to ensure this manual remains relevant to the current workforce. Check out some modern culture employee handbook examples for inspiration.
Ask This Question
Simply ask existing employees: If there was something you wish you had known when you joined the company, what would it be? Giving employees the option to answer anonymously will ensure honest, authentic results. You might get answers spanning from,
five tips for creating the best employee handbook to incorporating employee feedback to shape your company culture handbook. the company structure to how to use the coffee machines to the floor plan . You might even receive quotable insights that are humorous or inspiring these insights can be included in your handbook and will convey your collaborative company culture to new hires.
Company Survey
Many organizations conduct company-wide internal surveys annually to assess employee satisfaction. This is done at companies of all sizes, from large corporations with dedicated HR departments to small teams of fewer than 20 employees. If this is something you re not already doing, consider integrating surveys into your mix, and including questions on your employee handbook, including how often employees reference this manual, how familiar they are with it s contents, and more. Survey Monkey is one example of the many easy-to-use and affordable online tools available for conducting employee surveys.
Incorporate Employee Feedback
Incorporate positive employee comments and internal survey results in your handbook! Insights gained through focus groups, questions and surveys can be shared as stats, infographics, charts or visual callout bubbles. For instance, if your survey shows a 90% employee satisfaction rate, this statistic should be made clear to new hires in your employee handbook. If customer service is an important part of your company culture, include customer comments and feedback as well. Find out what an employee handbook says about a company and let your employees help shape your company culture handbook.
AirMason offers many templates, fonts and design elements to make this manual appealing and fun to read. Getting employee input on your rough version is easy with our password protected app that can be viewed on tablet, desktop or mobile via a unique URL. Learn more here.
