What is an employee handbook, and why is it useful?
Over the last year, we were very lucky to have the opportunity to work with some pro-bono lawyers through Philly VIP. (Just a side note: working with Philly VIP has been wonderful; if you are a small business or non-profit and need legal support, we highly recommend them.) One of the pro-bono lawyers, Zac Cregar at Altus Partners, helped us develop an employee handbook.
What is an employee handbook, and why is it useful? We didn’t really know the answer to this question before we started, and here’s our understanding of it now.
What is an employee handbook? Our employee handbook is an assembly of policies related to working here. It includes information like: a list of benefits you get from working here (e.g., everyone who works at Fishadelphia gets a free seafood share), how-to tips like how to log hours, submit reimbursements, and request time off, and what kind of behavior could result in getting fired, and what the procedures are to handle that kind of situation.
Why is an employee handbook important?
The employee handbook is ultimately an opportunity to write down what our values look like in action. For example: we made explicit that we want people to take care of themselves and stay home when they are sick.
I think there were two major benefits from writing our employee handbook:
- Before we developed the handbook, a lot of policies were developed on the fly as they arose. “How do I request time off?” “Do we offer any retirement benefits?” “When would we consider firing someone?” Writing the handbook forced us to think about many of the common questions that might arise, and develop policies about them thoughtfully and not in a crisis. It also allowed us to develop policies conceptually and not with a specific individual or situation in mind, which reduces bias.
- Sometimes, while we were writing the handbook, we felt kind of jerky, writing down punitive measures. But now that it’s written down, the handbook enables us to apply policies consistently across the board–which is ultimately a move toward increased equity.
One of the things that Victoria, our former Director of Operations–and Zac, the lawyer–emphasized is that an employee handbook is a living document. Things change, and handbooks are typically revised annually.
We’re happy to share our handbook with you in case it’s helpful, but to be clear: this handbook is specific to us and won’t be useful for anyone else without extensive editing. Also, although we worked with a lawyer to write it, we are not lawyers, so please don’t treat anything in the handbook as legal advice.