No contract and handbook?

Contracts and Handbooks, why your business needs them!

There are many reasons why employment contracts and staff handbooks are important, and it’s not just for legal reasons!

Formally speaking, an employment contract is a legally binding agreement between an employer and an employee. It can be agreed verbally, in writing, or even through conduct. Anyone classed as an employee or worker has the right to a written statement of employment particulars at their start date, and there are certain terms which need to be included in this legally. Most employers include these terms in their employment contracts, rather than providing separate documents. But if that’s the case you must ensure your new joiners are provided with the contract by their start date.

A staff handbook, on the other hand, is an overview of your company, the expectations and the policies and is normally non-contractual so you can make changes to it. It’s a great way to introduce new team members to the company so it’s a good idea to share it on the first day, if not before.

There are 2 key reasons for having this documentation in place, and up to date!

Making clear what’s expected

So, why are contracts and handbooks so important? One word: transparency.

By putting in writing all the terms and conditions and policies, you ensure that both you and your new team member are aware of what’s expected of each of you. There is less room for confusion or ambiguity, and it’s easy to refer back to it for guidance if the need arises.

And if there is a need to follow any kind of formal process, everyone is clear on how this works and can use it as a framework. Of course, that means if you do follow any processes, it’s really important to check what your documentation says so that you don’t miss anything out or do it the wrong way which would leave you at risk.

If you don’t have policies or a handbook in place it’s difficult to cover everything in a contract without making it any longer than it already is. This means that people might not meet your expectations or approach things in the way you would like because there is no clear written guidance anywhere.

In the absence of information, or an HR team, Google will become a staff members best friend and that can cause more problems than being clear and upfront with what you want and expect as a business.

Your managers may also struggle to manage their team if they don’t know how to approach situations like complaints, investigations, disciplinaries or absence issues. If there are no company procedures in place each manager might approach a situation differently which can lead to complaints of unfairness or bias and leave you at risk.

Sharing culture and values

Of course, your business is more than a list of list of policies and procedures, which is why a really well written, well thought out handbook is so essential. A healthy and thriving workplace is built on strong values, a common goal, trust, engagement and appreciation. By providing a handbook ahead of someone joining, you can take some of the apprehension away and help them to get a real understanding of the business before they start.

Good handbooks include things like the history of the company, what it stands for, why it does what it does, how people should behave, as well as information about the teams and clients and ways of working.

Yes a handbook includes policies and procedures but you have an opportunity to bring these to life by branding and tailoring the documents to your business and using your language and tone of voice.

You can also talk about how you communicate as a company, the systems you use, how you approach health and wellbeing and personal development and what benefits you have in place. There is a real opportunity to get new joiners excited about the business they are joining

How we can help

When you realise how much scope there is and how much you can include, getting all of this in place can feel a little overwhelming. Which is where we come in. We’re up to date with legal requirements, but more importantly we know what works best in practise. We’ve seen so many versions of the documents for different industries and different sized businesses that we can provide you with the best version for your business.

We tailor everything to your business so it’s not a one size fits all approach. Whether it’s just a contract you need or if you want to create a handbook to be proud of, we can work with you to create documents which are bespoke to you. More importantly we make sure they are in plain language and user friendly. We’ve lost count of the amount of times we’ve been shown a legalistic, long-winded, downright ugly set of documents for a business which is fun and vibrant and not at all reflected in what they give their staff on joining.

So, if you’ve been considering taking on staff and are feeling a little lost, or you know you need more in place for the team you have, take a look at our contract and handbook packages here and email us on [email protected] to get started!

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