A Case for the Employee Handbook
Sarah L. Powenski, Esquire, Littler Mendelson
Employers of small and medium sized businesses too often fail to consider or dismiss the value of an employee handbook. Employers may not want to incur the expense of drafting employment policies and may fear that a handbook will inhibit their ability to freely manage employees as the business grows and various situations arise. Employers are correct to have some level of concern. When handbooks are poorly drafted, so that they contain more protections than the law actually provides and make inappropriate promises and guarantees, they can create legal liability for employers. Recently, courts have awarded employees various benefits that - even though not provided for under the law - were deemed guaranteed by the language of an employee handbook.
But, it is a mistake to quickly discount the value of memorializing employment policies and practices in a handbook without considering the potential value added. Handbooks afford employers the time and opportunity to consider and to plan how to handle various employment matters and issues that arise in the workplace. A properly drafted handbook provides a measure of comfort to employers knowing that their practices and procedures set forth an established mode of operation, offer guidance to managers and employees, decrease disputes between the employer and employees, and promote good will among employees knowing they have benefits and protections in employment.
Properly drafted employment policies also provide a level of legal protection. These baseline policies will set forth standards and guidance on how an employer will respond to various situations and allow an employer to point to written policies to justify its actions. Absent such standards, discretion can quickly appear as or become discrimination. At the end of the day, the benefits of having an employee handbook outweigh the burdens.
When preparing an employee handbook, consider which practices you currently engage in and which formal and/or informal policies you already have in place, and decide whether you will continue these practices and procedures in the new handbook. Also consider adding the following critical policies:
- Anti-harassment policy
- EEO/Anti-discrimination policy
- At-will Employment statement
- Disciplinary policy
- Attendance policy
- Employee Pay and Benefits policies
- Workplace Violence policy
- Family and Medical Leave Act policy, if subject to the Act
To ensure that a handbook complies with applicable laws and to avoid inadvertently creating undesired rights for employees and obligations for employers, an attorney should draft or - at the very least - review your handbook. Finalized handbooks should be distributed to all current employees and all new employees at the commencement of their employment. Each employee should sign and turn in an Acknowledgement of Receipt of Handbook, to be retained in his/her personnel file. Each year, employers should review their handbooks and determine whether any policies need revising based upon the employer's experiences of the previous year, as the business grows, and as laws advance. A well-written, thoughtful, and legally accurate handbook can provide a tremendous resource for employers and a measure of protection that should not so quickly be discounted.
Make Internships Profitable
Submitted By: The Internship Institute
Take a hard look at your blind spots and you may begin to see what more and more employers now realize: that an internship program can yield high returns for any business willing to make the right investment.
The goal of an internship program is to create a "win-win" for businesses to manage programs as easily and as well as possible to make the internship experience rewarding, enriching and – yes – profitable.
Now let’s talk about your internship investment. Any business that hires college graduates or simply needs added staff resources can benefit from having interns. Here’s how:
‘CHERRY PICK’ AND ‘HOME GROW’ TALENT: Internships create a low cost, low risk talent pipeline to "test drive" potential future employees. This includes not having to pay benefits or make a long-term commitment to a graduate of unknown quality. In short, internships reduce employee recruiting time, costs and mistakes. Your business can "home grow" these emerging professionals to be more capable and valuable upon employment.
GAIN PRODUCTIVITY: Everyone has more to do than the time to do it in. A common misconception is that it takes more work to manage students than what you get back. But a recent study proves that a single intern supervisor can gain up to 225 full work days of productivity/year simply by shifting their time to manage and mentor interns instead of doing everything themselves. All any manager needs to do is inventory five or more hours/week of work they do that they can delegate.
Interns can do research, writing, planning, phone and computer work to achieve a broad range of tasks. The time gained creates opportunity to accomplish project work that would otherwise remain on the proverbial ‘backburner’ and it enables managers to rise above lower-level tasks to be more productive themselves. In fact, we’ve developed hundreds of ‘real work’ ideas and supporting materials, like templates and self guides, to make delegation easy and results-driven.
Some examples of projects of value to most any business include having interns conduct surveys, do competitive intelligence research, uncover and pursue marketing opportunities, develop and manage website content, write and edit articles for publication, plan events, contact organizations of interest, prepare presentations, and find online resources.
PROFITABILITY: There are many ways that interns can contribute to the bottom-line. In the case of professional services businesses – those that bill by the hour such as marketing, law, accounting, engineering, technology and general consulting firms - these companies can bill their clients for valued work done by [paid] interns. Other types of businesses, such as those in media, entertainment, sports management and HR companies can put students to work for what matters most, like collecting and/or converting sales leads. Just be sure that as much work as possible aligns with students’ learning goals.
Whatever goals you set for your program – be they to increase productivity and profit or to improve talent acquisition, development and retention – internships create a world of opportunity with infinite possibilities. Now is the time to convert all this opportunity into your business gains.
ABOUT THE INTERNSHIP INSTITUTE
The Internship Institute innovates, educates, collaborates and advocates to make internships a powerful remedy to close the gap between the classroom and the workplace. Its program management solutions, consulting and training services are provided by its "Z University" affiliate and feature "The Blueprint for Internship Success" instructional video (DVD) to show employers and supervisors how to do everything right and the comprehensive "Intern Toolkit" with turnkey materials to do just that. For more information, visit www.ZUniversity.org or call 877.ZU2GROW (982.4769). Fellow GPCC members receive special pricing and our full guarantee to make it well worth the investment.
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