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Employee Handbooks Make Sense For Small Employers
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Article 1: Why You Need An Employee Handbook
Employee handbooks aren’t only for big corporations.
Employers with only a few people on board have an even greater need to put workplace policies in written form.
Consider that a small business has more to lose than a large one from the poor performance of an employee who resents unfair treatment, real or imagined. After all, in a small organization each individual carries a larger portion of the workload.
In contrast, a good employee handbook will assure fair treatment for every person.
“An employee handbook can be valuable for even the smallest businesses,” says Liz Weber, president of Weber Business Services in Greencastle, Pa. “It can lend guidance and consistency to decision making and limit open interpretations and assumptions.”
A good handbook can keep the small employer out of court for inadvertently violating the law, says Katherine E. Bierma Pregel, an associate with the Washington, D.C., office of Littler Mendelson, the nation’s largest labor and employment law firm.
“Smaller employers in particular are often unaware of all of their state’s regulations,” warns Pregel. “The very act of putting policies in writing can raise employers’ awareness of their legal responsibilities.”
Smaller employers with casual policies are also at higher risk of treating employees in ways that can lead to discrimination lawsuits, adds Pregel.
“An employer with only a small number of employees tends to get to know them on a more personal level. As a result there is more of a temptation to break the rules.”
That can be avoided with written policies.
“Not having an employee handbook trips up a lot of employers,” cautions Pregel. “When you have an incident where you need to enforce something, it’s better to have a policy in writing and not have to worry about whether you are treating one person differently from another.”
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