The Employee Handbook & HR Policies - Where to Start & Where to Stop

Introduction

Employers know that we have several new employment laws in the pipeline for 2025 and beyond and so HR managers will be busy!

All businesses need a set of up-to-date employment policies to outline the basic practices and procedures that govern the employment relationship that they have with their employees. Information needs updating in line with changes of legislation. Some employers like to put their policies together to form a staff or employee handbook. All policies need to be easily found, readable and relevant to employees. Most policies might go in the handbook, but some information relevant to setting out the basic rules might be better referred to elsewhere.

Policy guidance may refer either only to the statutory minimum requirements or to any employer’s specific approach, which may be more generous than the law demands. There are lots of different approaches to how to present this information, what to include and what to leave out.

So, how do you know where to start in deciding which policies to provide for your employees to see? Do you also need to outline what HR need to do in any circumstance?

Perhaps most importantly, when do you know when to stop writing policies and to define the point at which there is just ‘too much information’?

This webinar will offer some useful hints and tips when putting together a handbook or set of policies for your business.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• Employee handbooks - different overall approaches
• Non contractual policies versus contractual terms of employment - what goes where?
• How your handbook links to your overall HR strategy and method of communicating to employees
• Defining which policies you need - looking at practicalities and legal considerations
• Assessing resources available to draft policies, whether you need a designer, what legal advisers might add and where to get your content from
• Policies you do not need and those which might be harmful to your business
• How to tell if your handbook is fit for purpose

This pre-recorded webinar will be available to view from Tuesday 8th April 2025

Alternatively, you can gain access to this webinar and 1,700+ others via the MBL Webinar Subscription. Please email webinarsubscription@mblseminars.com for more details.