As we wind down the year 2024, there are several items that I’m sure remain outstanding on your corporate “To-Do” List. Dave McRae and Marie Ignozzi already have published excellent posts about some of this very subject.

In Marie’s article, she discusses how the end of a calendar year is the perfect time to revisit and update your company’s policies and employee handbook. I agree! I counsel that all businesses, no matter how small, need to have an Employee Handbook which should be the guidepost for all personnel-related issues.

When I discuss this with clients, I often hear “Yes, we have asked our payroll company to work on this.” And now it’s time for me to get on my soapbox.

Look, I get it. The Handbook your payroll company can sell you may be legally compliant and may have most of the policies you need. However, there are a fair number of reasons you should want your RKW Employment Lawyer to assist:

• ‍Your Handbook should not be one-size-fits-all. The Handbook should be tailored to your workplace. Sections in the Handbook concerning pay practices that your company doesn’t use, or benefits your company doesn’t offer, can be actively harmful in disputes down the road. Further, if your bases for discipline in the Handbook don’t include the issues that are present in your workplace, the Handbook loses its utility.
• ‍The landscape on which laws apply to your business is constantly changing and evolving. If your Handbook references laws that don’t apply to your business, you could be promising employees benefits to which they would otherwise not be entitled under law! For example, under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), at least one federal court has held that a company’s treatment of an employee as if they were eligible for FMLA leave (including by having a Handbook policy), prevented the employer from defending a subsequent FMLA claim on the grounds that the employee was not entitled to the protections of the law.
• ‍If a claim is made against you, all eyes will first turn to the Handbook. This could be any claim – from a claim for unemployment benefits, to an administrative claim before the EEOC or NLRB, to a lawsuit in state or federal court. The first line of defense for lawyers to show the governing body is that the employer maintained policies, and (i) it followed them in a nondiscriminatory manner and/or (ii) the employee(s) did not avail themselves of the protections under the policy. If your lawyer will be using your Handbook in the defense of a claim, wouldn’t you want your lawyer to have drafted the Handbook?

So, yes – you can have your Handbook updated by a non-lawyer, and you may receive a document that’s legally compliant and works for your workplace. But when we’re talking about one of the most important documents for your workplace, is that something you want to leave to chance?

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