Wise employers understand that employee handbooks have several purposes:
First, they are marketing documents. Your organization likely has marketing fliers used to promote your products and services. Those fliers were designed to influence potential buyers to have a positive image of your brand and build potential buyers' confidence in your organization's ability to solve a problem or somehow make their life better. Your employee handbook should do the same for new hires - inspire confidence in your organization as a fair and good place to work.
I run across some organizations who have invested thousands on slick marketing material but their employee handbook looks like a Frankenstein document. Sometimes they are not branded, they have multiple fonts and font sizes, each section reads like it was written by a different author (because they were cut and paste from different sources), and it's chock full of legal-sounding terms and phrases designed to intimidate the new hire. Nothing says, "welcome to the company" more than a document in which every other sentence ends in, "..may result in termination."
Second, they are guidebooks. A good handbook shows employees where the boundaries are. It defines the behavior that is expected and rewarded and behaviors that might get you in trouble. It's not a substitute for managing, and supervisors and managers shouldn't expect to have a written policy to back up their every decision. For example, I see some handbooks where the dress and appearance section is over a page long as the company has codified every violation that's ever occurred. For most organizations, just saying "dress appropriately for your position" and "management reserves the right to send you home..." is probably enough. If specialty shoes or apparel are required, it's appropriate to mention those in the handbook, but defining the difference between unapproved flip flops and approved sandals in a handbook for 50 employees seems silly - and will be perceived as silly by new hires.
Third, they are for compliance. There are some policies that simply need to be in a handbook. For example, if Paula Deen's restaurant group had an employee handbook with a well-written harassment policy that communicated what employees should do if harassed back in 2012, she would be millions of dollars wealthier today. Government agencies and the courts expect a company to have certain policies in place covering discrimination, harassment, at-will employment and several other staples of labor law compliance. Some once-popular policies have been found to be out of compliance in recent years, so it's important to purge those from your handbook.
If you handbook is more than three years' old, if it was borrowed and repurposed from another organization, if it doesn't reflect your brand and present a positive first impression of your company, if it has more pages than your company has employees, or if sounds like a real estate contract, it might be time for a handbook refresh.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
HR Priorities for 2018
Each January I publish a list of HR priorities for small and mid-sized companies for the coming year. Here is this year's list:
1. Harassment Policy and Training - sexual harassment has been a dominant feature on newscasts over the past several months. Like me, you've probably been shocked by some of the allegations against prominent celebrities and politicians. The take-away for small and mid-sized businesses is that they should have two things in order: First, they should make sure they have a good policy. Read yours and confirm that it covers what it should and is very clear about what employees should do if they believe they are being harassed. Second, they should make sure all of their foremen, leads, supervisors and managers have received documented training on what harassment is (and isn't) and what to do if they encounter it.
2. Classification of Exempt/Non-exempt - if you are located in North Carolina, 2018 signals the beginning of a new enforcement division which represents a consolidation of resources at the state level specifically to combat misclassification of employees. Summarizing what one labor attorney told me: "in the old days, if one agency determined you were out of compliance, they didn't necessarily communicate that with other agencies, but with this new enforcement group, you're more likely to get hit with fines from multiple agencies for a single infraction." That might mean fines from the wage and hour division for failure to pay overtime plus fines from the taxing authorities for failure to withhold the proper taxes, all from a single investigation. Even if you're not in NC, lack of compliance with exempt/non-exempt can be an expensive mistake.
3. Classification of Employee/Contractor - many small companies find it tempting to bring on workers as 1099 contractors rather than employees. It's less hassle for the company and the workers like it because their weekly check is bigger. But it's a risky strategy. The government discourages the use of 1099 because it doesn't get its tax money on payday, and may not get it at all. The fines and penalties associated with misclassification of employees as contractors are among the stiffest an employer can face. The threat of prison is even on the table for extreme cases.
4. Social Media policy - the National Labor Relations Board under the Obama administration took a very rigid stance against social media policies that they felt had the potential to silence speech protected by the NLRA. That Board, now lead by a Trump appointee, recently announced a softening of that position. But it still makes sense for organizations to ensure that they have a social media policy that protects the companies interests while also remaining in compliance with even a narrow interpretation of the NLRA.
It can be a costly mistake for business owners to assume that since a more business-friendly administration has replaced a more labor-friendly administration, that investigators and auditors from state and federal agencies are going to turn a blind eye to violations such as these. The rules are still the rules and business owners are better served being compliant.
If you need assistance with these or any HR initiatives in 2018, The Davidson Group is here to help.
1. Harassment Policy and Training - sexual harassment has been a dominant feature on newscasts over the past several months. Like me, you've probably been shocked by some of the allegations against prominent celebrities and politicians. The take-away for small and mid-sized businesses is that they should have two things in order: First, they should make sure they have a good policy. Read yours and confirm that it covers what it should and is very clear about what employees should do if they believe they are being harassed. Second, they should make sure all of their foremen, leads, supervisors and managers have received documented training on what harassment is (and isn't) and what to do if they encounter it.
2. Classification of Exempt/Non-exempt - if you are located in North Carolina, 2018 signals the beginning of a new enforcement division which represents a consolidation of resources at the state level specifically to combat misclassification of employees. Summarizing what one labor attorney told me: "in the old days, if one agency determined you were out of compliance, they didn't necessarily communicate that with other agencies, but with this new enforcement group, you're more likely to get hit with fines from multiple agencies for a single infraction." That might mean fines from the wage and hour division for failure to pay overtime plus fines from the taxing authorities for failure to withhold the proper taxes, all from a single investigation. Even if you're not in NC, lack of compliance with exempt/non-exempt can be an expensive mistake.
3. Classification of Employee/Contractor - many small companies find it tempting to bring on workers as 1099 contractors rather than employees. It's less hassle for the company and the workers like it because their weekly check is bigger. But it's a risky strategy. The government discourages the use of 1099 because it doesn't get its tax money on payday, and may not get it at all. The fines and penalties associated with misclassification of employees as contractors are among the stiffest an employer can face. The threat of prison is even on the table for extreme cases.
4. Social Media policy - the National Labor Relations Board under the Obama administration took a very rigid stance against social media policies that they felt had the potential to silence speech protected by the NLRA. That Board, now lead by a Trump appointee, recently announced a softening of that position. But it still makes sense for organizations to ensure that they have a social media policy that protects the companies interests while also remaining in compliance with even a narrow interpretation of the NLRA.
It can be a costly mistake for business owners to assume that since a more business-friendly administration has replaced a more labor-friendly administration, that investigators and auditors from state and federal agencies are going to turn a blind eye to violations such as these. The rules are still the rules and business owners are better served being compliant.
If you need assistance with these or any HR initiatives in 2018, The Davidson Group is here to help.
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