BUSINESS The Employee Handbook time. Once you have your draſt well developed, consider hav- ing a qualified attorney review it. To Print or Not to Print? Many companies with well-developed employee handbooks elect to print them. This can be expensive, and then there is the problem of how to update as changes become necessary. For relatively minor revisions, you can always DIY print revised pages or issue a supplement covering the changes. Aſter too many changes and updates, you will need to reprint the com- plete handbook again. You can also find low-quantity printers online, and this may be a solution for your company’s needs. As an alternative, other companies prefer to build, main- tain and update their handbooks in an electronic format, such as a word processing document or PDF. With this approach, there is no printing cost (except paper and ink for your printer or photocopy machine), and anyone can print a current copy whenever needed. In some situations, it may make sense to just refer employees to the current edition on your website, company electronic bulletin board or somewhere else acces- sible to employees. But be sure to have a realistic method of letting employees know when changes are made so they can get up to speed im- mediately. Posting a notice on the bulletin board in the em- ployee lunchroom would be a good start. Keep in mind that you will need a mechanism to indicate the original effective date of each section and/or provision, or the revision number and revision date. You should also maintain a table of contents so that the recipient can determine what the latest updated version is. Some changes should provide a 40 KEYNOTES JULY/AUGUST 2020 transition period before the effective date and never try to make changes retroactively. You can also elect to maintain a loose-leaf binder for each employee and simply issue replacement pages as necessary. Again, you should clearly indicate the effective date of sections or provisions and whether they are original or revised and, if so, which revision. The user needs to know whether they are looking at the current section, provision or page. Conclusion Having read this article, hopefully you are now familiar with the fundamentals of employee handbooks and their application. You should also know where to find various resources to help develop your company’s handbook. As always, the information in this article is general in nature and, thus, you will need to decide what is appropriate for your business situation — and also whether or to what extent you should seek professional or legal advice. The next article in this series will discuss the challenges of a family business. Noel Flynn is a degreed business management consultant with global senior leadership experi- ence, including more than 20 years in manufactur- ing, wholesale distribution and consulting sectors of the security industry. Noel has been a senior executive, officer, board director and adviser to not-for-profit and for-profit companies in numerous industries worldwide. This includes being an ALOA board member since 2011, and he is also an ACE instructor, developing and teaching business management. Contact him at [email protected]. WWW.ALOA.ORG
