Unlocking eSignature Legality for Funeral Leave Policy

How to eSign a document: eSignature legality for Funeral Leave Policy

well hello there it's Nikki Ramirez here the founder and principal consultant at hranswers.org and it is November of 2022 and our team has put together a presentation today um to review and dive into some of the best practices and tips that we have for small business employers to create a practical and impactful update to their employee handbook for 2023 and if you don't have an employee handbook yet then we'll have some great ideas for you to think about and consider as you navigate moving toward publishing your first employee handbook so thanks for joining us today and we're really looking forward to a good conversation sharing a lot of really relevant details for small business employers and as we get started I did want to First make mention that this presentation in particular has been prepared as an educational opportunity and isn't to be construed as legal advice or anything like that our team is connected with um with licensed labor and employment attorneys across the country so if you find that you need the Assistance or the advice of an attorney you can always reach out to our team for a good referral all right so what are we going to be covering today um it's an exciting time of year because folks are thinking about what the New Year holds and with all of the ups and downs the roller coasters that as Small Business Leaders we've all experienced over the last few years I think a lot of us are working to stabilize our small businesses and so when we are thinking about stabilizing and refreshing and renewing and getting stronger for the future from an HR perspective one of the things that we recommend taking a look at engaging in in terms of a project to small business HR project is looking at your employment policies and your employee handbook and really figuring out what works for me now because maybe it's been a while since I reviewed my employee handbook or published any updates what should I be looking at how do I roll this out to my team um and you know why does it matter overall you know I have a lot going on in my business the economy is swinging here and there you know do I really have time for this is this really that important so we're going to cover sort of the the why the what we should be working on and how we're going to get it done in short order today so just to button up some of the whys here I wanted to start out with a little bit of a framework around employee handbooks that we can agree on hopefully and if you don't agree I hope that you reach out and let me know where our points of disagreement are so that we can work on best alignment and and I'm sure that our team still has something to learn more to learn from Business Leaders out there so we're always inviting your feedback um one of the top reasons though that we know working on an employee handbook is a great investment in our time and our energy as Business Leaders is because it really does allow us to set the tone for successful employment from day one we're able to communicate with new employees sort of what the rules of the road are or in another analogy we're able to provide new employees with a guide rail of sorts that they can hang on to as they navigate the new work environment expectations from one business to another just simply aren't the same and so when a new employee joins your team we want you to have the opportunity to establish a positive approach to employee relations a positive approach to dealing with questions and problems complaints and concerns we also want to make sure that we set the tone for successful employment by using communication in the handbook as a mechanism to express to employees how much you value their contribution and we can with some careful thought and consideration we can work to generate positive feelings about the organization and its leaders by crafting policies that are clearly meant to support success in the workplace beyond that we know that some of the the benefits of having an employee handbook are that we are able to consistently communicate expectations across your organization employees right now are really looking for an equitable workplace a workplace where everyone has a chance to succeed and where the rules really do apply equally across the board all employees regardless of their tenure with the company their position with the company Etc are all held to some of the very same standards as it relates to creating a work environment in which everyone can be successful so communicating those consistent conduct expectations things like that is one of the benefits of having an employee handbook we're also able to provide important information to employees that demonstrates that your business intends to align with and comply with federal and state and local employment rules and regulations you know the most important thing when we have an employee complaint about non-compliance is that we are able to really show that we did intend to comply we have a policy that says we would so if the company or a leader made a decision that was out of alignment with the policy or perhaps violated a rule or regulation it wasn't anything that we did intentionally it was perhaps an administrator or clerical errors or just a judgment mistake and so we can fix that um we can also share important expectations related to attendance and codes of conduct how do we deal with the holiday season what about basic safety at work all that kind of good stuff so just day-to-day nuts and bolts expectations we can briefly outline employee benefits and perks and also workplace rules and responsibilities so what do employees have a right to what are they entitled to and what are they responsible for and then lastly one of the wonderful benefits of having an employee handbook and great employment policies is that your leadership team is going to have a tool that they can use to address issues answer questions and continue to be aligned with your values and your mission and your vision so as we start to think about the development of the employee handbook now we've talked a little bit about why we have the handbook some of the benefits of putting together a great employee handbook now what does it look like to put together an employee handbook that works a practical tool for your small business so to begin with um we do want it to be comprehensive we want it to cover enough topics that it makes sense for your employees it makes sense for your team based on the size of your company based on the industry in which you operate and the location in which your employees work and where your business is located so we want it to be comprehensive enough we don't want to leave out important things that employees are wondering about we also do try to stay away from going into what I would call just Overkill mode and having policies just to have policies or trying to cover every question with a policy we can never really do that you know there's never going to be a policy for everything but when we write a great employee handbook we can help employees learn how to make decisions as it applies to their relationships with other employees their interactions with clients and customers and the public we can help them understand how to access the benefits that they're entitled to all sorts of good stuff so we want to be comprehensive but our team you know we're pretty practical we don't want to go into Overkill mode we do want the handbook to be easy to navigate it should be easy to electronically search information in your handbook it should be clickable from the table of contents and it should be navigable electronically um and we should use numbering conventions so that we can refer back to sections and policy numbers I am not a huge fan of like a traditional legal format but I do like policies like section one policy one section one policy two um beyond that you know we prefer to use a little bit lighter more natural conversational type style we don't have policy you know section one policy one a one we don't go that deep into the numerical numbering or traditional formatting um the most important thing is that the book is easy to navigate for your employees not that it reads like a an employment contract or anything like that we do want it to be state-specific local specific so the rules and regulations that you want to show that you comply with in your business those are likely tied to state federal and local rules so we want to address those things that are most important of course we want it to be industry specific as well so if you are working in a public-facing operation or a client-facing operation you know perhaps we put together a client service policy that makes sense in your business which would be very different from a customer service policy in a different business maybe you operate in medical practice or group health prior group mental health practice um your policy is going to look very different than a customer service policy for a retail operation or a restaurant and then we want it to be company specific as well so we do want to encourage Small Business Leaders to not be afraid to weave in dialogue about your values your mission and your vision throughout the handbook to create context for your employees so that they understand how your employee policies your employment policies how they align with and support the type of workplace that you want to design and deliver for your employees some of the things that we are trying to avoid when we put together an employee handbook we do want to ensure that we're avoiding legal language or any language that would create a contract if you would like to have contractual agreements with your employees those should happen outside of the employee handbook most simply handbooks will have a disclaimer that says hey this document is meant to provide policies our employment with our employees is likely at will which means that employees can come and go employees can leave without cause reason or notice and the employer can decide to terminate an employee without cause reason or notice as long as it's not unlawful so we say those things in the employee handbook and we say those things in the acknowledgment forms but then we do things like put non-compete language into handbooks or non-solicitation language into handbooks and so we want to be wary about that because what we are doing when we put non-solicitation or non-compete type policies or Clauses into handbooks is trying to create content contractual agreements between the employee and the employer just for those policies and that really doesn't work that that muddies the waters in a big way and so if your company wants to have non-solicitation agreements for example so that an employee is not able to take a whole Client List and leave and you know call down the list and try to move all of the clients of your business into their new business for example the non-solicitation agreement will prohibit them from doing that but again that is a contract or an agreement that is set up and put together outside of your employee handbook and we really do encourage Small Business Leaders to get with a trusted labor and employment attorney to look at those agreements because on a state-by-state basis the agreements um do tend to look a little bit different to avoid list is complicating our employee handbook with procedures we really want our policies to be the guidelines for thinking and decision making and the procedures for getting things done live outside of the handbook so for example we might have a policy that says we have an open door policy we are here to listen to our employees ideas and concerns and complaints and we want you to come to us at any time when you're concerned about any condition in the workplace any relationship in the workplace that's our open door policy we want everyone to have a wonderful work experience come to us if it's not wonderful now that policy doesn't say exactly who to contact by name and phone number you might say contact your supervisor there might be a problem-solving policy that says we follow um the idea that employees have a voice in the workplace that's our philosophy and so we want employees to bring their concerns and their ideas and their problems to the team and we encourage people to start with their supervisor and if that doesn't work move on to another leader in the company or anyone with whom you feel comfortable again we're not naming Everybody by name or position we're not listing phone numbers or email addresses so the whole procedure is not listed out on how to schedule an appointment to complain but it does say our philosophy is and Our intention is to make it easy for employees to raise their concerns so um we want to stay away again from you know getting too deep into writing procedures into handbooks another one that we've seen a lot that we really try to encourage our team um to look at and our clients to refine our timekeeping procedures so if you have time sheets or time reporting or calendaring type rules within the workplace and you're naming the systems that you're using in your employee handbook in order to time keep or report payroll things like that we really do encourage folks to get away from naming those systems putting email addresses to people that support the payroll or the timekeeping process we want handbooks to be able to stand alone without too many updates that are small and administrative for at least up to a year so we don't want to have to update a policy when there's turnover within the company because an email address changes or a person's name changes in the hand we want to make sure that we make it as simple and practical as possible that once your employee signs off on the handbook that really until there are substantive changes big changes that really apply to the way that the business is working not who's doing the work necessarily you know we don't want to have to complete updates and roll out formal updates for that more on that later the last thing that I wanted to share here is really just that we want to avoid using overly technical language or legal jargon employee handbooks should be easy for people to understand and navigate as new employees or in the unfortunate circumstance that your employee handbook is presented in some sort of legal claim or charge we don't want the judge or the jury or anyone really in the public to have to decode your handbook so let's use common language if there are acronyms for certain types of policies like a PTO policy for example let's spell it out in the beginning so that we know what we're talking about if we use an acronym or an abbreviation all right and the employee handbook program overall you know having an employee handbook is the first step you know we want to put it together beyond that we have to do some stuff with it in order to make it worth its weight so to speak so in addition to just having your practical and impactful policies put together and ready to go you have to have a plan for getting your employees to acknowledge that they've received a copy of the handbook and that they know what to do if they have questions you know we used to ask employees to sign off that they read and understand all of the policies in the handbook but really does that seem practical at this point we know that employees don't typically engage in reading the entire employee handbook so let's be careful to ensure that the language is aligned with what we really expect we collect acknowledgments typically we collect them electronically within a payroll or HR System our team really likes bamboo HR as an option for streamlining some of your HR practices including collecting acknowledgments on employee handbooks for new employees and updated handbook acknowledgments for existing employees as you do roll out updates down the road and on that note if your team would like more information about bamboo HR just shoot me an email and I'll send you over some great information that we have bookmarked and saved for you we have to record keep those acknowledgments we have to be ready to grab them if somebody asks about it so sometimes when an employee leaves your business and they've had a little bit of a sticky termination perhaps maybe they engaged in some misconduct or something like that and they've gone on to file for unemployment for example you may determine as a business leader that you want to contest that claim and so you want to be able to share in your reply to their unemployment claim that they engaged in misconduct and so you don't believe they're eligible for unemployment well at that point you need to be able to pull out the acknowledgment that the employee received your conduct policy and a copy of your conduct policy to go with it with your response so make it easy to find those acknowledgments by record keeping them in your HR information system or in a separate file or binder that makes it easy to grab onto a couple of other quick ideas here Orient all of your employees so the handbook don't just hand it out don't just send it out electronically at least host an open q a type meeting for your employees to come and go and ask you what questions they have make sure that your leaders supervisors team leads managers directors everyone in a role where they lead and make decisions about how to apply policies in the workplace make sure they get special training though so that they understand what the compliance techniques are and how to best align compliance and business culture make sure the handbook gets rolled out to all your employees when it's updated so that everybody knows what has been updated and where to look for those updates and then make sure you've got one single point of contact that folks can go to if they have questions about the handbook aside from an employee's direct supervisor that makes it easy to identify patterns when updates are needed or patterns when we find that there are problems with compliance with policies across the organization then you have time to analyze it some of the other things that we are working with our clients on and and that we hear other HR professionals talking about in terms of considerations for 2023 employee handbooks um really thinking about you know how are we delivering this information to our employees in a way that meets their needs so are we translating our handbook to different languages um do we have a printed copy for employees that do prefer to hold a copy in their hand and review it and highlight it and write on it let's make that available what about our employees who are either unable to read or can't see very well or simply prefer to hear spoken word have we considered an audio version of the employee handbook and then are you hosting sort of an open HR q a on maybe a quarterly basis to invite people to ask questions about policies in the workplace those are some of the considerations that we've got on our list and I hope you consider too so let's talk a little bit about Trends so we talked about how to design and sort of build out and why we do it the way we do it now let's talk about some of these trends so what we're seeing and what we are recommending is that as we review and revise our employee handbooks for 2023 let's really look to create more flexibility for employees to make good decisions on their own behalf wherever possible in our policies let's focus on policies that address employee well-being that address employees needs for flexibility and things like that and let's make sure that if you haven't done this already that you revamp your policies to communicate your culture so how can you create context within the employee handbook within those policies to help people understand how much you value them their contribution and you want to align with your values like collaboration or accountability or civility or trust so here are a handful of policies that we are looking at in terms of reconsidering revising refining as we go into 2023. so we're really taking a look at employment classifications as well as time tracking so that's kind of two policies so first thing to think about is how do you really Define full or part-time work and why is that important well it might be tied to certain types of benefits or perks or time off things like that in your business so let's make sure that you've got a realistic and updated idea of what full-time looks like full-time work and part-time work make sure that your definitions are clear too so a simple policy to think about is that full-time employees work 40 hours or more per week part-time employees work less than 40 hours per week on average we can't have a gray area so sometimes folks will say well part-time employees work 20 hours a week or less and full-time employees work 40 hours then we've got this funny Gap that we're not sure what how people are classified in between so let's make sure it's clear employers really need to be in tune with employee time tracking rules and regulations there are lots of States out there that are very interested in knowing how many hours your non-exempt employees work so for those non-exempt employees how are they tracking their time where are they tracking their time and and what are your sort of um your your rules within the workplace the policies and then referring folks out to procedures for how to actually do that time keeping is important um but making sure that you've got an idea of who's responsible for it is it your practice manager is it your general manager who should people go to if they're time keeping things off um how do we make it easy for people to you know keep track of their time and record it and things like that how do we make it easy for people also to understand what they're required to do like for example employees non-exempt employees need to clock in and clock out accurately every day that they work and so that means that they have to clock out when they go to their lunch breaks or their dinner breaks and they have to clock back in when they return super simple instructions that are important so that if you have an employee who is perhaps challenging their pay saying I think you are underpaying me then you have a very simple way to audit for accuracy because your employees following your policy they're clocking in and out properly now you can audit their Time Records and say oh you know what there is an administrative error and your pay is short let me cut you a check or you can say gosh this is very strange because it looks like here based on our time records all of your time has been paid what kind of discrepancies are you talking about and how come your time records don't match your pay stubs because our policy is that everybody clocks in and clocks out accurately timely every shift so you can see where those conversations can go and how you can Loop the the policy requirements into the conversation and then from a from an employment classifications perspective are you clearly defining full-time and part-time status those sorts of things in your job offer letters and agreements so we need to have it in our handbook and our policy before we can offer it in a Java offer letter or an employee handbook so we tidy those things up so we can include them in our different areas of business um telecommute and hybrid work policies are still under you know scrutiny and up for change right now you know who's eligible for telecommute arrangements or hybrid work arrangements and have you thought about why how do you determine alternative work locations for employees do you understand how that supports their well-being perhaps how do they support clients when they're working in alternative locations and does your telecommute and hybrid policy align with your mission and your values from a workplace culture perspective and then also as you're building out your telecommute and hybrid work policies how will you manage company equipment and who's responsible for what what are the rules related to company equipment for telecommuters or folks that take equipment home so that they can work in a hybrid type of work environment other general policies to consider meal breaks and rest periods first of all we want folks to look at what's required in each state or local area because the federal government doesn't mandate any types of rest periods breaks meal breaks nothing like that so we want to consider what makes sense for your employees and realistically how long should your employees really be required to work without a mental or physical break we see often that employees who are exempt they're paid a salary or they're exempt on a fee basis those employees have flexibility to sort of ebb and flow with their day as their demands come up they work on them as demands slow down they can take breaks they don't necessarily have a set lunch hour dinner hour anything like that but most often hourly employees are told you know sort of wind breaks are appropriate when they should take a lunch break or dinner break those sorts of things then I just really want folks to be realistic about the physical and mental burden that we place on our employees and make sure that we really are encouraging people to take the breaks necessary to keep on going and feel fresh on a day-to-day basis providing a workplace where our policies align with a culture of well-being is really important right now probably more than ever and so things like meal breaks and rest periods are those are policies that you might reconsider and refine and ensure that your employees if they're working an eight-hour day that they probably have two or three five or ten minute breaks that are paid breaks where they can get up stretch their legs wander off for a minute you know check their phone whatever it is you know out of the sight of the public or clients but that's really how we attend to people at this time some of the other things to think about in terms of policies to consider or reconsider do you have updated policy related to your hours of operation and employee schedules how are employees learning about their schedules that sort of like leans into procedural stuff but what I wanted to mention here is that some states are passing rules and regulations related to predictive scheduling and that's a the type of employment regulation that says employers have to publish employees schedules where where employees work a variable schedule have to publish it a week or two or more in advance and they can't really change it without notice to the employee either and so this is again a way to align your well-being practices with your policies perhaps you adopt a policy that says we do our very best to publish monthly schedules so that our employees can plan their personal lives and balance their work needs as well and any changes will be as minimal as possible once the schedule is published things like that what about Flex time you know do you employ do your employees have the ability to perhaps come in early and leave early on a given day if they need to pick their dog up from the vet or something like that and then when you are looking at your policies for hours and scheduling things like that what's your normal practice for looking at regular schedules does your organization have sort of blackout dates where it's just not reasonable for employees to take time off based on your industry or your geography or something like that so taking a look at all those items really important that this time again in an effort to align values with workplace well-being with policies another Hot Topic that we're talking a lot about with employers lately it seems is outside employment and so outside employment policies are pretty practical for most organizations there are some states that say employers can not prohibit employees from having outside employment in certain circumstances um you know there is definitely a push to allow employees to have a side hustle or chase their dreams make a little money doing so that sort of thing but you know what is reasonable in your business would it be reasonable for a person to have two full-time jobs could be I mean folks ebb and flow with their lives in a lot of different ways the most common thing that I see and that we recommend as a starting point for these types of policies is really to say hey our employees are required to tell us if they are going to accept outside employment that way we can discuss how that may impact their current role with this organization that gives you a platform to discuss with your employee who is the other employer is there some sort of conflict of interest what type of schedule are they going to commit to with that other employer and does that overlap with their schedule with you um what type of resources are they going to need you know hopefully they're not going to take your tools and equipment off to work that other job you know things like that so having the policy be practical and Progressive enough to facilitate the opening of a conversation I think is where we where we want most employers to be at this time and then some of the policies related to Performance and progress on the job I wanted to mention that those keep coming up in our conversations with clients and with other HR practitioners as well we want to make sure that you have a great policy that describes the new employee introductory period it clearly defines it as a period of you know 30 or 60 or 90 days or whatever is right for your business and really we want to make sure that the policy describes the purpose of the introductory period so in our case you know we typically you know are telling folks to think about positioning the new employee introductory period as a period of time where the employee is learning about the job deciding if it's for them and the organization the leadership is training the employee providing them with feedback and deciding if it's a good fit so let's bolster some of that language to align with values and to increase communication around support for new employees as well one of the Hot Topics that we talk about a lot in HR and with small Business Leaders is should we have employee evaluations and so there's no right or wrong answer to that to be honest with you you know we believe that employee evaluations are a great tool and a mechanism to take a look into the past so a little walk down memory lane a little bit of a ceremony a little bit of a rite of passage where when an employee completes a period of time you're able to gather together celebrate what went well and plan for the future so it's not a disciplinary practice performance evaluations are not a part of the disciplinary process they are a way to create memories with your employee so you know I want us to think about you know what do you want your Cadence for employee evaluations to be do you do a new employee introductory period evaluation at the end of 90 days and then do you do annual evaluations or something different and then again are you sharing with employees what's the purpose of the evaluation is the purpose aligned with your mission aligned with your values and then lots of policies to consider in terms of time off so bereavement and funeral leave is something that we looked a lot at over the last few years unfortunately um just with the scope of the pandemic there were a lot of requests for this sort of time off and so we took time to look at it and say what's practical for our employees if it's paid time off or unpaid time off if we can financially afford it but how do we give employees flexibility to take care of their personal needs and the unfortunate circumstance that someone that is close to them passes away so who is covered by the bereavement policy culturally do we allow employees to observe someone's funeral or a memorial service even if it doesn't happen at the exact you know sort of time period around a death some cultures will have memorials that are a year after a person passes away so we want to be sensitive to that and think about that when we develop these policies what type of Parental leave is right for your business what type of family leave is right do you have floating holidays what about volunteer time do you give birthday leave these are all different types of leave that we know are meaningful to employees um and there is no one right way to craft those policies because they're not always going to be required by rules so like family leave or parental leave is not required in Most states at this time so if a company wants to design a policy there's a lot of freedom to do that but again we're going to check for rules and regulations to comply with first no state has a rule that everybody has to give birthday leave but we think it's a pretty neat idea that within the month of your employees birthday you give them a little flexibility and time off and then one of the other policies that we're really taking a hard look at over these last few years are the holiday policies do you allow your employees perhaps to swap holidays if the ones that your company designates are not meaningful to them we know that employees come from all different cultures and backgrounds religious affiliations and all that sort of stuff so when we publish our policy would you consider allowing employees to swap out to something that makes more sense for them in their life all right so that's a little bit about the trends so we've kind of covered why we have employee handbooks what employee handbooks are built out of so what's the framework and you know how are we constructing them and why and we've talked about some trends that we're seeing now I wanted to do a quick review of some q a that we received so small Business Leaders that we work with submit questions and in preparation for this webinar we also received several questions so I wanted to share five of them that we thought represented the themes and topics that we've been seeing and talking about so the first one here I'm a practice manager at a practice with 19 employees in Illinois There are 16 clinicians myself and two other administrative employees and then the owner it doesn't seem like the time off policies really work for everyone based on their job responsibilities and how our team operates can we have different time off policies for different employees so different time off policies per single employee know but different time off policies by group of employees perhaps or yes so one note that we made is that the employees count is likely at 20 employees based on the fact that there it looks like there are 19 obvious employees and then the owner I would check with the owner see if they receive a paycheck and a W-2 and if they do then they also count in your employee account just as an FYI um and just to give a little bit of you know more a deeper dive into the answer so it's likely okay to create different time off policies to meet the needs of different groups of employees so for example maybe clinicians and administrative employees have different policies in this case private employers can do this as long as you're not um moving out of alignment with like a mandated sick leave policy or something like that and in addition when we're looking at these sort of time off benefit policies that are different for different groups of employees they need to check and make sure that the policy is not systemically creating Problems by group so let's say you run a medical practice and all of your clinicians are are male employees I'm just making this up and your administrative employees are female employees and your clinicians get more time off than your administrative employees well yikes that could be a problem to look at because now your men are receiving more time off than your women in the business and so we really want to be thoughtful as we build these policies out and make sure that you know maybe the accrual strategy is different but everybody who has a certain number of years with the organization gets the same amount of time off right clinicians may be accrue at a different rate but cap at the same amount as an administrative employee so just different things to think about based on how people time keep you know maybe they're exempt or non-exempt all sorts of moving parts so yeah we we can be creative and flexible but we want to make sure that we don't create policies that discriminate against anybody of course all right question number two I own the Telehealth practice that has a total of 12 remote employees right now a few employees live in New York the rest of us live in New Jersey where the practice is based we do serve only New Jersey clients do you have to worry about New York rules for my handbook so the answer to that is it's likely that you do for the purpose of determining which rules and regulations apply from an HR perspective where your employee lives and works determines which rules and regulations you should review and consider so in this day and age of remote work and flexibility allowing employees to sort of move we have an employee moving across the country right now from one state to another and we discussed that and made sure it worked for both of us the employer has to agree when an employee is moving their their permanent address to another state the employer is essentially going to have to agree to become an employer in that state so it's a big decision because there are tax implications for the business and there may be rules and regulations to consider such as those related to mandated leaves and benefits required by a certain state so we do need to consider where employees live and work and where the business is situated both question number three um here we are so I own a medical practice in Arizona we have the 30 employees employees I've been working on a new paid holiday policy I'm ready to roll out my handbook except for that policy I'm not sure that I can afford all of the paid holidays currently listed in 2023 should I hold off on publishing my entire handbook until I can figure out the holiday policy so our short answer here is don't wait there aren't any real hard and fast rules about what needs to be in an employee handbook in most cases but I say this of course there's a gray area because it's Human Resources There are rules and regulations some states do require that where a company has a handbook that they publish certain policies in the handbook so like if you have a handbook and you have a mandated sick leave policy it's important to look and see does my state require me to publish my sick leave policy in my handbook so just something to think about and where you're uncertain or things change in your business you can always publish a memo of sorts right it's kind of an old-fashioned word but it works just fine so you could publish a holiday policy memo on an annual basis to let your employees know which holidays work um obviously in the back end you know it's for financial reasons you don't need to say that in the memo you can publish these memos or updates in alignment with your handbook acknowledgment best practices so back you know several slides ago many many minutes ago now we talked about the acknowledgment process if you have a holiday policy that goes out on an annual basis perhaps you send that out for electronic signature in your HR information system as well question number four I lead a business with six employees in Nevada I feel like publishing an employee handbook might be Overkill it might change the way we work together do I really need an employee handbook since I have so few employees and honestly this is one of my favorite questions because um for for me after 25 years working in human resources and specifically working on employee policy development the answer is really simple to me it's yes you do need an employee handbook employees are people all employees are people whether they work for a company that has one or ten or a hundred or a thousand or a hundred thousand employees and employees are people first and people need to know what is expected of them there needs to be Clarity so that they can be successful and employees people do best and feel most confident when they're clear on what's expected of them and what the rules are handbooks simply provide a standard by which employees can make decisions to help them be successful at work so to me it's that simple employees are people people need guidelines so that they can make great decisions and so we can sort of quote unquote get on the same page with people it's a way to create common language in your business common language used to make decision making decisions that align with values Mission and best practices in your business So Small Business Leaders we really encourage you to focus on creating practical policies to align with your business culture and your values and address any compliance rules and regulations that apply in your business too and the last one last question for today question five out of five Here I Am the general manager at a vet practice based in Texas we have around 85 employees at five different locations how often do we need to update our handbook honestly it's kind of a hassle to do it every year that's a great question so our answer kind of Simply is maybe not every year but generally from an HR best practice perspective updating your handbook at least every two to three years is a good idea planning on that of course if you have major rules and regulations change you can always update your handbook but the thing to remember here is that anytime you update anything within the handbook you're going to need to go out and seek a new acknowledgment so get it in writing from your employee that they received the update so we want to do that as you know minimally as possible so we want to put a lot of thought and Care into the handbook development process so that it's practical it covers enough but again it doesn't need to go into Overkill mode though um this here is a list of resources that small business employers might like to take a look at it's a link to different Department of Labor sites that might even take you to a state site to look at for example a list of paycheck timing requirements so when are we required to pay our employees by law does our policy align with that last paycheck requirements so for example in Arizona if we terminate an employee involuntarily if someone's fired our company has seven days to get them their final pay if the person resigns from their job they just get their final pay on the next scheduled payday different states have different rules meal and rest periods we talked about in the policies to consider especially from a workplace employee well-being perspective different states have different rules on breaks and meal periods exempt employees I dropped a couple of those terms salaried or exempt employees how do we know if someone's exempt or non-exempt that's a analysis that takes a lot of time and attention and you can start with the fact sheet at the link here and then when we're thinking about time recording and things like that we do really need to have an understanding of working knowledge of what constitutes time worked under the fair labor standards act so if we were having a pop quiz I might ask you what does flsa stand for say your labor standards act that's our national sort of across the U.S umbrella wage and hour rule for all employers practically so these are some resources that you might like to look at if you're doing a DIY redo of your handbook in the go to webinar platform right now you are able to download your resources here so you've got the slides and you've got the links as Live Links when you download the PDF so if you look at your attendee control panel you can go to the handouts drop down and in the handouts drop down you'll be able to download these slides all right so here's your checklist to send you on your way your employee handbook checklist for 2023 so first and foremost you're going to need to consider what federal state and local regulations might apply in your business um your State Department of Labor and your local Departments of Labor probably have websites that list a lot of this information make it fairly easy to navigate um if you've got time to do that and then you want to analyze industry standards and best practices So based on the type of practice you're running based on the type of business you operate you know what are we seeing in terms of trends for workplace policies and the design of work workplace policies we also want to consider types of employment questions that employees came to you with that you couldn't answer based on a policy and again I don't think we need to create a policy for everything but I do want you to think gosh five employees came to me and had questions about Flex time starting late and ending late or starting early and ending early they wanted to know if that was permitted maybe it's time for us to publish a flex time policy I also want you to reflect on times that you deviated from your current policies and made an exception so working to create policies that are practical and you don't have to make exceptions to all the time is super important we want your policies to be practical and we want you to be able to consistently apply them in your business so we have to make edits where you're not able to consistently apply them um and then we want to take time to consider how well your policies align with your operational procedures so are you right now in a position that um your your policies are not supported or they're not supporting your operational procedures there might be some misalignments again we're not listing procedures in our policies but maybe your policies are making your procedures hard to follow so think about that interplay and see what needs to be updated where and then lastly aim to align your policies with values and Mission to cultivate your desired workplace culture I mean I think that's the most powerful message that we might leave together um you know sort of on the table for consideration is that the employee handbook of 10 or 20 years ago super dry document on a shelf didn't move for at least a year took it out for annual updates nobody really reviewed it employee handbooks today really need to be something that creates an opportunity for everyone to communicate and succeed so let's aim to align policies with value and Mission to cultivate that workplace culture that you're really dying to to create for your people we want your employees to have a fulfilling work experience and we know that that begins and ends with clear communication so of course um we're here to help if you are ready to go but you're not sure where to start so our expert team can help with the development of your new uh or refined custom handbook and we are available you can reach us online you can send an email you can give me a phone call and I'll always be here to help one way or another um I'm happy to connect you can find me over on LinkedIn if you'd like to connect there I always love to build my network and and sort of chat with people especially in that social space about what's happening in their workplace what's working what's not working and how can we all come together to help create workplaces that people love so that we can create a really positive work environment and create a positive Ripple in the world so thanks so much for attending and I hope that you are feeling invited to reach out at your convenience I hope that you are feeling warmly invited to become a part of our Network and just know that we are here for you when you are ready to work on your HR questions thanks so much for coming and we can't wait to hear from you soon