Employee Handbook

Elizabetharess

We have three separate companies that have three separate functions and Fed ID's, not related to each other except the President presides over all three companies, the HR department is under the corporate office but handles HR for all three companies, PR is processed in corporate and Accounting is done through corporate for all companies.
We are working on the Handbook and the intention was to combine all 5 handbooks into one general handbook. As I see it we can combine and note the various differences in the catagories that apply, such as PTO, Education.
Does anyone out there have some insight into this? It is mind boggling to juggle 5 different handbooks!
Thanks

NeedCoffee

Hello and welcome to the Forum!!!

It is quite difficult to juggle 5 handbooks - while I don't have a great and easy solution, what has worked best for me is to make one notebook with everything that is similar, and in the categories where information differs (PTO, vacation, etc), write "See Attached Addendum."

Then, all you have to do is write a separate addendum for each site that has the information that pertains to them. It's not a nice, clean and ideal solution, but it's pretty easy.

I would love to see if anyone has an easier way to do this!!!

System

First you need to outline all of the policies and practices that are NOT the same from one company to the next. Once you know how much variation you're dealing with, you can determine whether it makes sense to combine all companies into one handbook, or issue separate ones. It starts getting pretty confusing trying to spell out all the different policies in one single handbook. It also opens the possiblitiy of other employees seeing different policies in effect for other parts of your organization, then complaining that they have the proverbial short end of the stick when it comes to time off provisions, benefits, etc., which is never a good idea to purposefully put yourself in a position of having to explain all the reasons for the variations. You may be better off having a handbook issued for each separate company or for the various categories of employees in order to minimize that potential friction. It would be fairly easy to write a template for standard handbook that applies to all, then just change the provisions that are different from one company to the next and issue accordingly.

Elizabetharess

Thank you and after much thought and hard work, I am going to continue to separate the handbooks. We have such a diverse employee base between the organizations that some would be upset and not understand why the variations. I am going to agree. Addendums cause too much confusion in the long run and I would worry about their signing off on the handbook;then the Addendum, etc. Even though the liability in terms of Employer relations issues go to the very top because Accounting and HR function for all companies within the Corporate Company, it is best to separate the books.
Anyone else out there with suggestions?

Wildsporty

My suggestion is that you write one handbook with the policies that are the same for all companies. Than you put the sections which are different in for the different companies.

Thus you would have one handbook. You could say in the one handbook for PTO policy see section III or something to that order.

You could print out the handbooks, then just put in the appropriate sections that pertain differently to the different companies.

That is what I do for my companies. I have AIM Australia, AIM New Zealand, AIM South Africa, AIM Canada, AIM United Kingdom, and AIM USA.

I have one handbook and it has the basics. Than I add the sections which pertain to each country. I actually use the attorney system of numbering with sections 1.1, 2.1 and I can add sections inbetween such as 1.1A or 3.7 or 8.1.

Shirley