Do I need a staff handbook?

The benefits of having a clear staff handbook

Successful staff inductions help prevent employee workplace issues later on; and the foundation stone of any induction management program is a professionally assembled employee handbook that communicates all necessary information to new employees clearly and effectively.

Comprehensive and easy-to-understand employee handbooks should detail employment policies and procedures, clearly articulating your business’s expectations of employee behaviour and performance in their roles. This will help you establish reliable and productive teams, and minimise the risk of conflict and absenteeism.

The key to a good induction program: be clear about expectations

Many workplace issues arise simply because employees do not understand what is expected of them.

It is important to communicate expectations clearly right from the first day of employment, so that misunderstandings, confusion, and ‘information gaps’ are avoided.

A good employee handbook clearly outlines your organisation’s policies and procedures. This gets your induction program off to the right start, and should continue with regular monitoring of progress over the first months of their employment. This will identify extra training or induction requirements, and proactively deal with any issues that arise, before they become more serious.

Start your induction program the easy and effective way

Creating induction manuals and programs from scratch can be time consuming for smaller businesses without the resources of large organisations. Many business owners are unsure where to start.

ER Strategies makes it easy to establish high quality employment practices. You can benefit from our years of experience in induction management, with the following strategies and tools:

  • A comprehensive HR Systems Analysis Report, providing an independent assessment of your present HR systems and identifying where improvements can be made
  • Evaluation of existing employee handbooks
  • Comprehensive employee induction forms and templates to create your new employee handbook
  • A new staff induction checklist template to ensure you have everything covered

Take a look at our services to see if there may be anything else we can assist you business in doing.

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Need to let an employee go? Use our letter of termination template to ensure you are using the correct format. 

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