EMPLOYEE HANDBOOKS

Reduce the risk of disputes and employment claims with policies that are easy to understand and apply

Protect yourself at tribunal by showing that you have met your obligations

Protect your business interests with policies tailored to your company

Get in touch

OUR HANDBOOKS

For £1350 + VAT, our handbooks include:

27 easy-to-read policies tailored to your business

A consultation with an employment solicitor to tailor the policies to your business needs

Digital copies of your policies

To reduce our environmental impact, we no longer include a paper copy of the handbook as standard, as most of our clients did not need it. We still offer an optional, professionally printed copy if you need one, priced at £150 to cover the cost of printing and postage.

Individual and Additional Policies

We can draft additional policies not included in our standard handbook. These policies will be priced upon the complexity of the policy and the work involved.

Policy Reviews

We also offer reviews of your existing policies. Reviews are priced based on the amount of work involved in reviewing them. We will ask to see your documents to provide a quote and advise if it is more economical to start over with new policies.

Get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Our handbook includes 27 essential policies:

Holiday pay

Whistleblowing

Drugs and alcohol

Bribery

Modern slavery

Social media

Grievance

Recruitment

Performance improvement

Appraisals

Absence management

Disciplinary

Right to work

Generative AI

Religious and National holiday celebrations

Use of computers, email and internet

Training and development

Company cars

Harassment and bullying

Maternity and family friendly

DOES MY BUSINESS NEED AN EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK?

Having an employee handbook is not a legal requirement but is certainly good practice. It is a method of collating all the important points you want to bring to the attention of your employees. As an employer, you are required to provide quite a lot of information to your employees and having a central document, whether printed or electronic, is an efficient way of making sure this happens. It also makes it easier for you to keep the information up to date.

Compared to the cost of a tribunal claim and poor morale, a good handbook is an extremely valuable investment.

The benefits of a good handbook include:

Fewer disputes

Without clear guidelines, your workplace and workforce can develop its own culture, which may not be what you intend. A staff handbook can set clear expectations around behaviour, ensuring staff know what is expected and are confident about how to resolve problems through the correct channels. Not only does this make for a better work environment, it reduces the risk of tribunal claims against you.

Defend yourself against claims

Apart from being a good source of helpful information for your new employees, tribunals have used employee handbooks to make decisions which have supported the employer.

Showing that you followed your policies can help you defend yourself against claims of unfair dismissal and constructive dismissal. You can also defend yourself from vicarious liability for employees’ behaviour by showing that you took reasonable steps to prevent misconduct.

Attract and retain talented employees

Wellbeing, flexibility, diversity, and ethics are more important to workers than ever. You can attract talented staff by demonstrating your culture, then help them to reach their potential with policies to support staff (for example, menopause, family-friendly, equal opportunities).

Good grievance and whistleblowing policies will encourage staff to be more open about problems so that they can be resolved before they escalate or drive people away.

DID YOU KNOW...

92%

of working parents look at parental leave policies when considering a role

25%

of workers prefer companies that are proactive about mental health

£28.8 billion

is lost each year by businesses collectively due to conflict in the workplace

40%

of young people would rule out workplaces with a gender pay gap

WHAT MAKES A GOOD HANDBOOK?

Easy to read

Handbooks are often too long or complicated for staff to engage with or understand. This can lead to managers making mistakes when applying them, having to fill in the gaps themselves, or ignoring them altogether. All of which put you at risk of tribunal claims. Easy-to-read policies ensure employees can quickly find the information they need and apply it to the situation.

Tailored

There is no one ‘standard’ process that works for all businesses. Every business is different, and individual factors will affect your practices. You should tailor your policies to fit your business so that the processes are achievable and your needs are met.

Up to date

If a policy is out of date, it might not protect you at a tribunal. For example, when a company dismissed an employee for attending work with Covid, the dismissal was found to be unfair partly due to the fact their health and safety guidance was outdated and didn’t include any instructions about Covid.

Integrated

Too many handbooks are an uncoordinated collection of documents from previous HR professionals, templates, other businesses, and updates based on online advice. This leaves a risk that policies will contradict each other. Instead, your policies should complement each other – especially in areas where there might be some overlap. Our handbooks will be consistent in tone and tailored with your business culture in mind.

GET IN TOUCH

SCHEDULE AN INITIAL CALL

Full name:

Phone:

Email:

Preferred callback date:

Preferred time range:

How did you hear about us?

Brief summary of your enquiry:

We take your privacy seriously and will only use the information you provide on this contact form to deal with your enquiry. Please see our Client Privacy Policy for more detail.