Among my clients and many other businesses the question often arises: Do we need written employment policies or employee handbooks or manuals? The following is what I usually advise and why.
In general, there’s no statute mandating that businesses have such policies or manuals. But, relative to public sector contracts, most government agencies require that a business have such policies for affirmative action purposes. Additionally, many employment practices liability insurance carriers require, or very strongly urge, policy holders to institute employment policies. So, practically speaking most businesses that wish to engage in government work, or receive grants or some type of outside funding, or carry employment practices liability insurance, must have policies or manuals.
In other words, government agencies, many outside funders and insurance companies want to see a business’ human capital related documents as much as that business’ financial records. Thus, examination of a companies’ human capital practices is a form of due diligence. Other than these reasons to have written policies, it’s not an absolute necessity for a business to have documented employment policies.
However, businesses that wish to engage in structured planning and development, or that have grown to point where ad hoc policies and procedures are too inefficient and inconsistent should create documented policies or handbooks to avoid operational chaos and protect themselves from 3rd parties like employee side attorneys or regulatory (government) agencies.
There are plenty of cheap and free resources available to help businesses document and plan their HR policies. Some of these resources are credible. However, the problem associated with many of these generalized or template forms is that they don’t’ address the specific regulatory environment businesses are confronted with, or they don’t address the actual needs a company might have. Also, they’re not current. They’re canned.
For example, a business that’s not covered by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) might wish to implement some type of family or partner leave policy. Consequently, that business might institute a policy not contemplated by the canned publications. The same goes for anti-union policies, etc. And, if that same business needs to update policies, the canned publications might not provide those.
Another problem with the canned publications is that many of them emphasize quantity over quality and form over substance. More specifically, they offer a plethora of policies that businesses may never have to address and don’t offer policies for situations that a business actually needs to address.
For example, if a company has never faced any complaint of harassment or discrimination, then having a canned and heavy zero tolerance policy addressing harassment or discrimination might have a demoralizing effect on a workforce. It might be better to address harassment and discrimination in a more general fashion allowing for a range of actions to be taken for verified infractions.
Many canned publications only address sexual harassment as a form of harassment. However, if a company has never faced sexual harassment, but has faced racial harassment, what good does a policy explicitly addressing sexual harassment do for that company?
So, after considering whether or not to have written policies, the next question to answer is what policies to have. Implicit in the above discussion is that the situations encountered by a business and its regulatory environment will dictate policy.
After deciding whether to have or have not employment policies, and which policies to have, a business has to determine what form should these policies take—a written memo, a multi-page document, a bound manual, electronic or a combination of these. Alternatively, a business might choose to put nothing in writing.
Essentially, the decision comes down to company size and complexity and purposes of the policies. The larger and more complex a company is, the greater the need for written employment policies addressing a large number and range of issues; i.e., a larger document. The smaller and less complex a business is means that it will probably have fewer issues to address, and it might not even have to put all of its in policies writing.
However, even a small company in a highly regulated or complex industry, like law, nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals or energy, will probably have to address a greater number of employment issues via written policies; e.g., safety, hygiene, record retention and destruction, and regulatory agency reporting. In short, the complexity of a company and its industry is just as good of an indicator of what form employment policies should take as is the number of employees in that business.
What the policies are intended to address is another important indicator of which policies to implement and put in writing. That is, purpose is a good predictor of what policies are needed and their form. For example, if a 20-year old business has never addressed workplace violence issues, then it probably doesn't need to address this issue via written policies. Or, at most, it might not need to exhaustively address this issue in writing. However, a two-year old business that is undergoing rapid growth, and is hiring from a population that's at-risk to violence, might need to be more proactive and address workplace violence at the outset. In this workplace violence example, company size and industry complexity are less of an indicator of policy needs and form than the intended purpose of the policy. In short, a company shouldn't seek to address issues it hasn't encountered, unless it could reasonably expect to encounter these issues in the near future, or it’s required by law or regulation to address them.
When discussing what kinds of policies to implement with clients or prospective clients, I often use the "whack-a-mole" game analogy. As soon as you hit the mole another one pops out of another hole, and this forever continues. In other words, as soon as a business thinks that it has sufficiently addressed one workforce policy concern, a new one pops up. It’s impossible to sufficiently cover every issue or circumstance that arises, and it's impossible to put everything in writing. It the opposite were true, then labor and employment litigation in the U.S. would greatly decrease.
Taking the above argument a step further, a business’ policies, no matter what form they take, should expressly acknowledge the inability to cover everything, and they should explicitly state that the policies are intended as guidelines only. For example, the policies could indicate that it’s impossible to address every situation that may arise, and that the policies aren’t intended as a substitute for common sense or reasonable behavior. They’re intended as general guidelines only. The employer understands that exceptions to the rules may exist and will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, the policies should state that they don't create any form of an employment contract or agreement, and they can be changed at any time and for any reason without cause or prior notice by the employer (this doesn’t mean that the employer shouldn’t communicate any changes or new policies to its workforce; it’s bad management not to). Thus, the need to protect company assets makes putting policies in writing paramount for medium and larger businesses (25 employees and up) and more complex smaller businesses.
With all of this said, some businesses, especially small businesses, believe that it’s better to put nothing in writing. This way, they won’t give contentious employees and their attorneys bad ideas about lawsuits and complaints. Well I understand that logic, but I don’t necessarily agree. The reason I don’t agree is simple—unemployment compensation.
Financially speaking, unemployment compensation (“UC”) disproportionately impacts against smaller businesses to a greater extent than larger businesses. I.e., UC tends to eat up a greater percentage of operating expenses for smaller businesses than it does larger businesses. Furthermore, the people who handle UC claims tend to be sympathetic to claimants (displaced employees) because that’s who the money is for. So UC claims administrators tend to only deny benefits when the employer provides them with documented proof of employee ineligibility; e.g., misconduct, quitting work, absenteeism. Moreover, the UC claims processors usually seek documented proof of violations of employment policies. They expect the employment policies themselves to be in writing. It’s just government bureaucracy.
Consequently, as a general rule, from a cost versus benefit perspective, if a business is paying a lot in UC, it’s better that a business put policies in writing.

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democracy is a farce, freedom a mirage. the most basic freedom RIGHT TO INFORMATION EXPRESSION, is not honoured by the government,as the information opens up the crimes of V.V.I.Ps leads to their ill-gotten wealth. The public servants are least bothered about the lives of people or justice to them. these type of fat cats, parasites are a drain on the public exchequer . these people want,wish me to see dead, wish to see HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH closed . so that, a voice against injustices is silenced forever, the crimes of V.V.I.Ps closed, buried forever.

To my numerous appeals, HRW's appeals to you,you have not yet replied.it clearly shows that you are least bothered about the lives of people or justice to them .it proves that you are hell bent to protect the criminals at any cost. you are just pressurising the police to enquire me,to take my statement, to repeatedly call me to police station all with a view to silence me.all of you enjoy "legal immunity privileges",why don't you have given powers to the police / investigating officer to summon all of you for enquiry ?or else why don't all of you are not appearing before the police voluntarily for enquiry ?at the least why don't all of you are not sending your statement about the case to the police either through legal counsel or through post? you are aiding criminals,by denying me job oppurtunities in R.B.I CURRENCY NOTE PRESS mysore, city civil court,bangalore, distict court, mysore,etc by illegally closing my newspaper.

there is a gross, total mismatch between your actions and your oath of office. this amounts to public cheating moral turpitude on your part.

1.you are making contempt of the very august office you hold.

2.

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“Inequality” (regardless of how you define the word “equal”) does and will exist in the most despotic regimes following ideology from Marx to Plato’s progeny producing the likes of John Locke and the scholars of the American Revolution. No regime can provide or assure a specific outcome for the life of one or any of its citizens. This article takes no issue with the inevitability of inequality.
 
Yet we have an innate sense of right and wrong even when we do wrong. We know that “all men are created equal” has a meaning even if we can’t all agree precisely what that means. We know that the U.S. Constitution was written to provide a framework for liberty and freedom but not for women, native Americans and slaves. Women and native Americans counted as zero and black slaves pulled slightly ahead of women at 3/5 of a person, as stated in our constitution. 
 
When the American Slaves were freed about 160 years ago it was, in an economic sense, a conversion of capital into labor. 
 
Slaves had been purchased and traded like bales of cotton or rice or tobacco; they were property, they were allowed no education, no free will, and of course no bargaining power. How would anyone go about “educating” a bale of cotton? It makes no sense. While mystics ascribe a soul to everything, whether we think it is alive or not not, most of us are quite tolerant at denying rights to a bale of cotton, even if it is burned, torn apart are thrown under a bus. In a word, if the cotton “feels” anything, we don’t care and it isn’t likely that we will care anytime soon or that we should. Something in most of us “knows” that the cotton is not worthy of our sympathy, nor do we sense any obligation to it.
 
The system made perfect economic sense: the cost of production was reduced to the absolute minimum, repairs of equipment and “other capital” (like slaves) were repaired until they were of no further use at which point they were discarded. And unlike other forms of capital, slaves reproduced, thus continually expanding the potential for production without further capital expenditures. 
 
Society organized around this system in such a way that no actual person worked, without being regarded as disgraced. Plantations were worked by slaves, managed by slaves and the wealth generated went exclusively to the Plantation owner. The threat of removing this system, depriving the owners of their possession of slave capital was a threat to the entire way of life that had evolved over 200 years. 
 
It makes sense only if you look at some data and not look at other information. The slave capital system was missing a key ingredient a prospering rising middle class. The non-slave states had it and they did far better in the long run than any of the slave states many of which are still, 160 years alter, at the bottom of the barrel economically and in quality of life. Their resistance to allowing education to a significant population of former slaves was the equivalent of shooting themselves in the head.  It was an all or nothing mentality. Either the slaves would provide free production or we won’t help them do anything. 
 
The “information” Southerners were working with was that blacks were less than human. They thus deprived themselves of the single greatest resource they had to compete in a national economy and eventually internationally. Politicians looking for power found it easy pickings to tease voters into anger and resentment about the Civil War, about slavery, and about Jim Crow segregation. The politicians objectives were simple: maintain power. The rest of the people be damned. (which at the risk of political incorrectness, makes the Reverend Wright’s comment plausible, even if ill-constructed. He wasn’t wrong in what he said. Yet he missed an important point: 40-160 years ago he would have been tortured and hung for making a statement that passed only as a news story now).
 
The importing of tens of millions of Mexican laborers who had “illegal” status is an inevitable result of big business’ realization that the lock on the poor white and poor black populations was loosening. The grip of fear of discovery gave the leverage needed to convert these workers from labor to something as close to slave capital as would be tolerated in our society.
 
The mortgaging of America’s future, with all the inevitable taxes that implies, the culture of debt rather than savings, and the withholding and diminishment of education through all walks of life in America is the policy behind the tools of our re-enslavement. The risk now is higher and more widespread than in the 1790’s when women, slaves and native Americans were already discounted capital. Now the government and the business sector have us all targeted as potential “capital” instead of unhappy black men caught like animals and transported like capital with acceptable losses at 1/3 of the cargo. 
 
And the only thing that can stop them is a reversal of the institutionalization of ignorance. We have accepted too long the notion that we don’t know anything but that’s OK nobody else does either. We should all know more than we do, We should all treat life as an opportunity to educate, train and better ourselves. If we do, then everyone wins, including the business sector which needs the rising prosperous middle class to do business, whether it is here or abroad. Why don’t they know that? Because like you, they are just people trying to get the most they can right now. That’s human nature. That is the American way.
 
Treat every index with suspicion. Test all information against your own anecdotal experience. And don’t let anyone tell you they know more about your life than you do.

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