Update Employee Handbook with these 5 Must-haves

If your employee handbook hasn’t been updated in the past six months, it’s out of date. Because employment laws and your business are in a constant state of flux, it’s critical to keep your personnel policies up-to-date.

Content Summary

Social media
Especially for nonprofits
FMLA and the military
Genetic information
Prevention, not problem solving

Be sure your policies cover these important topics:

Social media

Determine whether social media is interfering with your business needs.

As the popularity of social networking continues to grow, employers should consider adopting policies that educate employees on your expectations and their legal obligations.

While social media provides companies with marketing, recruiting and other business opportunities, many employers also experience problems when employees go online. Problems range from decreased productivity and workplace distractions to disclosure of confidential information, invasion of privacy and harassment.

Employers can and should provide employees with guidelines on their use of social media. What those policies cover will differ from workplace to workplace, and may depend on whether the employer itself relies upon social media for business purposes. Social media is here to stay, so it seems prudent to adopt policies stating your expectations.

Especially for nonprofits

Consider adopting whistle-blower, conflict-of-interest and document-retention policies.

All employers benefit from policies that help employees adhere to ethical business practices and encourage them to report suspected ethical or legal misconduct.

Form 990 surveys whether an organization has written policies addressing whistle-blowing, conflicts of interest and document retention and destruction.

If you don’t have such policies, consider adopting them. If you do, make sure your written policies reflect the actual practices in your organization. Having all the required and recommended policies in place will minimize the risk of an audit or negative publicity for tax-exempt businesses.

FMLA and the military

Update the military sections of your FMLA policy.

Employers with 50 or more employees are subject to the FMLA. Among other things, the FMLA requires employers to have a written policy that details employees’ rights under the law.

Previously, military leave for a “qualifying exigency” was limited to members of the National Guard and Reserve. That right now extends to members of any branch of the armed forces.

Genetic information

Include genetic information on your list of protected classes.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) prohibits discrimination based on employees’ and applicants’ genetic information, and that of their family members as well.

Genetic information includes the results of genetic tests, along with information about family medical histories.

As a result of this law, you should make sure genetic information is on the list of protected characteristics in your nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policies.

Prevention, not problem solving

In addition to staying current with new legal developments, it is a good idea to review current policies with an eye toward lessons learned from prior employment issues.

Policies that are incomplete or ambiguous open the door to workplace disagreements, HR headaches and employment-related lawsuits. Thoroughly reviewing your employee handbook is a great way to ensure those problems don’t affect you.

Is your employee handbook leaving your company open to a lawsuit from a disgruntled employee? You know, the kind who pores over every word and finds a way to misinterpret something—or worse still, hires a lawyer to do it. Which means depositions, hours in court, sky-high fees. Ugh.

Source: Business Management Daily