Company Policies

HRManager

We are a small company and are in the process of coming up with some basic policies. Can these be put into effect as soon as they are issued? Do we have to have a meeting to explain the polcies?

System

Yes, you can implement them immediately. A meeting is good to give employees plenty of explanation and opportunity to vent. Small companies give employees a lot of freedoms, and your policies will probably take some of them away. And you might be surprised (or maybe not) at the little changes that employees get worked up over. For policies that employees won't like, you might want to meet with employees one-on-one or in small groups to avoid an ugly mob scene. You don't want the villagers to storm the castle by torchlight.

The most important thing is for your employee handbook to have a disclaimer telling employees that it's not a contract and they're still at-will employees.

Polices and handbooks are a big job. Here's some help:

[url]http://www.hrhero.com/q&a/handbook.shtml[/url]
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/q&a/handbook2.shtml[/url]
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/q&a/handbook3.shtml[/url]
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/policies/policyindex.shtml[/url]
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/headlines/030901/handbooks.shtml[/url]

Good luck.

James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers

HRManager

Thanks for getting back to me. What exactly does at-will mean?

System

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 11-01-01 AT 02:41PM (CST)[/font][p]"At will" simply means you can quit or be fired at any time for any reason (except for the 8,974,973 reasons that are specifically outlawed, like discrimination). Except in Montana, all employees are at-will unless they have an individual contract or a union contract.

By the way, I highly recommend a book called HR Quick List. It's great for identifying all the legal and practical issues that arise in HR situations.(Well, OK, I like it because I'm co-author.)

[url]http://www.hrhero.com/hrquicklist.shtml[/url]

James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers

HRManager

James,

This gives me a lot of stuff to read. Thanks,

Ruby

AMW

Yes, I think you should implement the policies as soon as they are completed. It will also be nice to have a meeting to review the policies with your employees. This will help to ensure that the employees understand the policies. You don't necessarily have to discuss all of the policies, but just the ones that employees need to be familiar with.

Good luck!

AMW