The Importance of Reviewing Your Employee Handbook

When you’re hired for a new job, the immediate feeling is almost always one of excitement. A new workplace, new coworkers, new opportunities, perhaps better pay and more benefits. But when you accept a new job, you’re also moving into an unfamiliar situation. Whether your job is with a small, local business or a franchise of a national chain, you need to know the lay of the land before you start working. One of the best ways to do this is to go over the employee handbook that you should receive as part of the training. Review it with a fine tooth comb and familiarize yourself with it before you actually start working.

What Is an Employee Handbook?

An employee handbook is comprised of many important pieces of information:

• A collection of policies, working conditions, procedures and expectations about your behavior in the workplace.
• The policies and procedures usually inform you how to find and access your personnel file, information on items like promotion policy and your workplace’s policies about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
• Your employee handbook could include words of welcome from the company president and information on your company’s mission, its vision for the future, the company’s values and its strategic goals.
• Handbook may also include information on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or confidentiality agreements if your company includes them as part of company policy.
• You also find information on attendance policies, sick leave, vacation time, sexual harassment, what happens in the case of severe weather, rules about using company property on personal time and speaking with the media.
• Perhaps most important, the handbook outlines how employees are compensated and the benefits they will receive, including overtime.

Employee handbooks are in the best interests of both you and the company you’re working for. For employees, a well-constructed, thorough and well-written handbook lets them know the company’s expectations for them in the workplace. They are important for employers because they help create a positive work environment by letting employees know that, regardless of the issue, everyone will be treated the same under the same set of rules.

Are Employers Required to Provide Employee Handbooks?

Although there are several workplace laws employers must inform employees about, there are no federal or state laws that require an employer to prepare an employee handbook. As a result, lots of businesses don’t bother to do so and instead deliver written notice of these laws one by one and then collect acknowledgments that each notice was received. When you consider how often these laws and regulations can change, your printer could get a heavy workout.

This is not a good idea for either the employee or the employer.

The last thing that many businesses want is having their Human Resources Department spending all their time answering questions from employees about policies and procedures. A well-written handbook reduces or eliminates this from happening. An employee handbook answers many of the routine questions that employees have about the workplace.

There is no uniform handbook that businesses can refer to as a template. Each handbook should be unique to each company’s routines and vision. Additionally, each handbook needs to reflect the laws of the state in which the business operates. As an employee, receiving a well-written and comprehensive employee handbook when you start a new job is the first sign of the professionalism of your workplace.

Important Areas to Review in an Employee Handbook

While employee handbooks can contain information on areas of relatively minor importance, such as how to deal with weather emergencies or what temperature the thermostat is set at in the work area, the true purpose of the employee handbook is to give employees guidance on important issues. These are some of the areas that you should specifically review when you receive your employee handbook:

1. Use of Social Media in the Workplace

Remember, anything that you write online stays online. Determine what your company’s policy is towards discussions that concern the company on your social media accounts. Are you allowed to use social media to talk to other employees about wages or working conditions? Or does your employer consider this unacceptable and a reason for possible termination?

2. Parental Leave

Many states are in the process of improving their parental leave laws, and many businesses use favorable parental leave policies to attract high-quality employees. Check the handbook for your company’s parental leave laws and see if they treat men and women differently. A well-run business will refer to “primary caregiver,” which could be a man or a woman. Check and see if the company also offers parental leave as a paid benefit.

3. Sexual Harassment

While sexual harassment policies have played an increasingly important role over the past few years, recent developments in the news have given them an even more prominent focus. When you get your employee handbook, carefully review policies and procedures about sexual harassment and how you can report it. For instance, if the handbook only says you’re supposed to report to your immediate superior, that is the sign of an outdated policy — but what if your immediate superior is the one doing the harassing?

The handbook should give employees several outlets to register a complaint, as well as spell out if sexual harassment includes issues like gender identity or sexual orientation.

4. Arbitration

This is an area that is in extreme flux. Be aware that the current political climate or possible court rulings could change the nature of arbitration agreements between employers and employees. Talk to your HR representative about the company’s policy on arbitration. Some companies will require that employees go through arbitration before they can launch a lawsuit against the company. It pays to be up-to-date on this critical issue.

5. Reasonable Accommodations

As an employee, you are entitled to expect reasonable accommodations for disabilities, including mental health issues. A thorough and comprehensive employee handbook will also include company policies on issues such as accommodation for the observance of religious beliefs, bereavement leave or when an employee needs to take leave to care for a sick or injured family member. Many of these reasonable accommodations are required by law, but the company should outline them explicitly in the handbook.

There’s one important thing that you as an employee must do. Do not assume that you can just leave to deal with many of these important issues without any consequences. Ensure you make the proper requests for any time off. The handbook should spell out very clearly the person to whom you must make these requests.

6. Use of Marijuana for Recreational or Medical Purposes and Drug Testing

For many years, employee handbooks would probably give you some guidance on smoking cigarettes in the workplace. In many states, this is no longer enough. While the use of recreational marijuana while on the job is usually a reason for termination — employers do not want their workers to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs while on the job, even if that drug is legal in their state — the question of marijuana for medical use is more complicated.

On the one hand, the federal government still considers marijuana illegal. On the other hand, several recent state court cases across the country have upheld the right for workers to use medical marijuana on the job to treat a disease or illness. If you are in a state that allows medical marijuana use, and you are a registered medical marijuana user, and your company requires drug tests, this is a critical area to check in the employee handbook for company policy.

7. Retaliation Against Whistleblowers

Your company’s employee handbook should not carry any hint of retaliation if you report any illegal activity to a government agency. Nor should it contain any threat about reporting a workplace accident. There are many federal and state laws that prevent a company from retaliating against an employee who reports an illegal activity. Check to make sure that your company clearly outlines its policies in these areas.

These are a few of the more important areas that should be covered in employee handbooks. You’ll also want to understand how you will be compensated, the extent of your employee benefits and other issues like how to deal with the media. A good employee handbook will probably explain all the areas, but it won’t try to explain everything.

A good employee handbook will be concise and well written. It will answer most of the questions you might have for your HR department, which means that you will only need contact them when you have a problem about an issue that may fall outside the general areas covered by the handbook.

How a Lawyer Can Assist in Reviewing Your Employee Handbook

Unfortunately, reading an employee handbook can be like reading War and Peace in Greek. Many employee handbooks are full of jargon and nomenclature and are dry and boring. Many people read only a couple pages before their eyes glaze over, and they put the employee handbook aside.

This doesn’t benefit you or your employer. Carefully going over every bit of an employee handbook can provide you with guidance about how you should behave on the job each day. It can help you identify who you need to file a report with if you’re being sexually harassed or when you should be receiving a benefit in some form from your employer.

The other problem with many handbooks is they are filled with legalese. One reason for this may be that the HR department that compiled the employee handbook didn’t take the time to properly explain what that legalese means in everyday language. Another possible reason is, depending upon the workplace, your employer may want to keep things fuzzy and is trying to confuse you about what your actual rights are.

This is why it makes a lot of sense to meet with an employment law attorney and review the employee handbook if you find it confusing. You need to be aware of your rights and what benefits you are entitled to as an employee. Whether the issue is compensation, parental leave or possible retaliation for a whistleblowing incident, it’s important you understand how your company views these issues and how you are expected to respond.

Sitting down with an employment law attorney to review your employee handbook can also help you decide whether or not this is the right place for you to work. As we noted above, a handbook that is well-written, comprehensive and understandable says a lot about the professionalism of the company that has hired you. On the other hand, a confusing, jargon-filled and legalese-riddled handbook can also signal that this may be a company that perhaps you want to think twice about before you accept the new job.

Let Weisberg Cummings, P.C. Help You Understand Your Employee Handbook

Understanding your employee handbook book goes a long way towards job satisfaction. If you’re having trouble understanding your employee handbook or there are specific issues that you are concerned about, let the experienced team of employment law attorneys at Weisberg Cummings, P.C. help you. We can sit down with you and go over the handbook bit by bit so that you can return to your job with a complete understanding of your rights, your benefits and what is expected of you as an employee.

You can reach us at (855) 716-2367 or contact us online. Leave us your contact details and tell us about your situation. A member of our team will get back in touch as soon as possible.

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