How To Write An Employee Handbook
TL;DR
An employee handbook is a powerful tool for communicating company policies, ensuring legal compliance, and fostering a positive work culture. Best practices include collaborating with legal, HR and department heads to gather information, using clear language, engaging formats, and seeking feedback. Tools like AirMason can simplify the creation and maintenance of your handbook.
Table of Contents
What Is An Employee Handbook And Why Is It Important?
What To Include In An Employee Handbook
Things To Keep In Mind When Writing An Employee Handbook
How To Write An Employee Handbook
Using AirMason To Make Writing Employee Handbooks Easier
One of the principles of workforce management is keeping your employees aligned with your goals and culture. After all, how can you build a high-performing workforce or protect yourself legally if your employees don't know what you expect from them or what the rules are?
Just like the key to a successful marriage, internal communication goes a long way in keeping everything together, and the best way to communicate with your people is through the employee handbook.
But how do you even write an employee handbook in the first place, and what should you include in it? In this guide, we're giving you the scoop on everything you need to know to write an employee handbook that puts you and your workforce on the same page, plus tools you can use to make the entire process so much easier.
What Is An Employee Handbook And Why Is It Important?
If you still think employee handbooks are just documents you need to communicate legally required information about PTO, sick leaves and workplace rights, you need to broaden your perspective. According to Gallup, only 32% of employees in the U.S. feel engaged at work. One major reason? A lack of clear expectations and guidance from leadership.
Employee handbooks serve as a means of communicating your business's policies, cultures and expectations so everyone understands their roles and responsibilities. They also clarify legal compliance requirements in the workplace so you can protect both your business and your people.
What To Include In An Employee Handbook
Federal Policies
Skipping the legal stuff and hoping for the best can become a big issue in the future, and according to the US Chamber of Commerce, it should be front and center in a handbook. So, be sure to include statements on at-will employment, anti-harassment and non-discrimination policies, and compliance with regulations like the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA).
Making these policies clear ensures everyone knows their rights while keeping you legally defensible if anything happens.
Employee Benefits
Your employees want to know what's actually in it for them. So lay out the benefits they will get, from healthcare, dental, and vision coverage to eligibility requirements. Don’t forget paid time off (PTO), your holiday schedule, and workers’ compensation policies.
Keeping benefits clear goes a long way in ensuring employees understand what they’re entitled to and helps you avoid miscommunication or create room for disengagement long-term.
Policies For Special Circumstances
If COVID-19 taught us anything, it's that unexpected situations can affect everyone worldwide and change the way you do business. Therefore, your employee handbook policies should not just cover workplace safety and remote or hybrid work but also account for unforeseen circumstances to keep your company adaptable.
Job-Specific Dress Codes and Grooming
If certain roles require specific attire or grooming for safety or professional reasons, include it, and make sure you're very clear about them. However, we do recommend that the policies are applied fairly, non-discriminatory, and allow for reasonable accommodations, such as adjusting for religious beliefs where applicable. That way, you can maintain safety, professionalism, and consistency across your team.
Things To Keep In Mind When Writing An Employee Handbook
Simplify Everything
Your handbook should guide, not confuse. Therefore, use plain language where you can, keep sentences short for readability and use clear headings where appropriate. Our expert recommendation? Avoid legalese where possible. After all, your employees shouldn’t need a law degree to understand their rights and responsibilities.
Include Everything Legal
It's simple: make compliance non-negotiable today and you'll steer clear of legal trouble tomorrow. So, make sure your employee handbook covers all federal and state laws, including FMLA, ADA, EEOC, and FLSA, as well as your anti-harassment, non-discrimination, and at-will employment policies. Trust us, legal clarity goes a long way in protecting both your employees and your business.
Make It Digitally Accessible
79.5% of the global population owns a smartphone. Therefore, it's no brainer to make your employee handbook easy to access anytime, anywhere. Digital versions ensure mobile-first employees can find what they need without being confined to a desktop. Plus, it makes it easy for you to update it without reprinting stacks of paper, provided you use the right software.
Review It Regularly
With policies changing a lot more now than ever before, your employee handbook should be a living document. Therefore, make sure you revisit it and update it where needed at least annually or whenever laws change. That way, you can easily keep policies current and enforceable without putting your business at risk of legal exposure. Tools like AirMason automate this process and take care of policy-based updates for you.
Use It To Guide Conversation
It's inevitable for difficult discussions to happen, and when they do, you can use your employee handbook as a tool for meaningful conversation. For example, if someone on your team is not meeting expectations, you can use it as a starting point and provide them with clarity without turning the conversation personal. That way, they will know that standards and procedures apply to everyone.
How To Write An Employee Handbook
1. Pin Down Your Goal
Take a moment to ask yourself why you're writing your employee handbook. Is it for onboarding, compliance, culture building or something else? Once you have a clear purpose, it will become easier for you to shape the tone, content and structure of your handbook.
2. Collect Everything Needed
The next step is revisiting the policies you have in place and consulting both Human Resources and legal experts to make sure nothing falls between the cracks. Make sure you discuss everything from working hours to conduct, safety, benefits and legal laws of employment across all regions you operate in.
3. Build Your Structure
Once you have a clear idea of what you want to write, the next step is planning how to put it together. Break it into logical sections: company overview, workplace policies, benefits, conduct guidelines, performance expectations, and termination procedures. Use headings, bullet points, and simple language to bring everything together.
4. Match Your Brand
Make sure your employee handbook looks and sounds like an extension of your company. That means if you have a relaxed culture, a conversational tone will work for you. For corporate settings, you may want to stick to a professional but readable tone.
As for visuals, use charts, links and other visual elements to make it digestible while keeping it on brand. Don't forget to make everything mobile-friendly!
5. Test With Your Team
Once you're done putting everything together, share your draft with a few trusted employees plus those involved in building it. That way, you'll get constructive feedback from both policy setters and the people who need to follow them.
6. Launch, Track, Update
All set? Publish your employee handbook and share it with your organization using a good employee handbook software like AirMason. You can even track acknowledgements, collect digital signatures, and put policy updates on autopilot thanks to AI.
Using AirMason To Make Writing Employee Handbooks Easier
Writing an employee handbook is the easy part. It's putting everything together the best possible way and keeping it up-to-date, organized and engaging that's hard. That's where AirMason comes in.
Think of it as your one-stop destination for everything you need to simplify the creation, distribution and maintenance of your employee handbook.
So, what can AirMason do?
- Help you create engaging handbooks from scratch using drag-and-drop layouts, including videos, images, and mobile-friendly formatting.
- Make changes to a policy once, and it automatically updates across all relevant documents, with full handbook versioning and restore points for safety.
- Use AI-powered suggestions and automated policy updates to keep you compliant effortlessly.
- Leverage acknowledgement tracking, send reminders, and oversee approval workflows, giving HR complete control.
- Integrate seamlessly with HRIS or SSO systems, push updates automatically, and monitor engagement, views, and digital signatures through built-in analytics.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can AirMason make my employee handbook mobile-friendly?
Absolutely. The software doubles up as an employee experience platform that makes it easy for you to create mobile-responsive layouts that your team can access from any device, including smartphones.
How do AirMason policy updates work?
AirMason automatically tracks changes to policies and offers AI-powered suggestions. The best part? Once a policy is updated, it updates everywhere, so your employees always have the latest version.
Can I track acknowledgements and signatures in AirMason?
Yes. AirMason collects digital signatures, sends automatic reminders and uses acknowledgement tracking so you can keep an eye on viewership. This makes it a great HR document management platform in terms of policy management.
How often should I update my employee handbook?
You should review and update your employee handbook at least annually or whenever big policy, law, or operational changes occur. With AirMason, you can trust the software to take care of important updates for you.
What should a good employee handbook include?
At a minimum, your handbook should cover legal compliance, workplace policies, code of conduct, compensation, benefits, special circumstance policies, and job-specific dress codes.
Can I use AirMason as an employee onboarding platform?
Absolutely. AirMason can be used to simplify employee onboarding, and it also offers a great way to communicate paperless HR policies to existing employees as they change.
The Takeaway?
Now that you know how to write an employee handbook and exactly what you should include in it, the next step is deciding how you want it to live and be managed long-term.
With AirMason, you can turn your handbook into a fully digital, interactive resource that’s always up-to-date, easy to navigate, and mobile-friendly. Ready to write your employee handbook the smart way? Try AirMason for free.
References
Gallup. (n.d.). State of the global workplace: Employee engagement insights. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (n.d.). How to write an employee handbook. CO. https://www.uschamber.com/co/start/strategy/how-to-write-employee-handbook
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. (n.d.). Family and medical leave act (FMLA). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). EEOC: Equal employment opportunity. https://www.eeoc.gov/
U.S. Department of Justice. (n.d.). Americans with disabilities act (ADA). https://www.ada.gov/
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. (n.d.). Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa
TechRT. (2024). Smartphone statistics: Trends and usage data. https://techrt.com/smartphone-statistics