How much does an employee handbook cover a company?

[WICN1981]

Hi all!!

Im on the sidelines with this one as was not involved, but in a meeting amongst execs they were discussing what to add to the employee handbook and the general belief is that if its in the employee handbook the company is covered by any eventuality.

How true is this?

To me the handbook acts as a company guide of dos and donts but in terms of legal cases, surely it cannot be a case of “we put it in the employee handbook so that was enough” surely there would ve a follow up question of “yes, but what did you actually DO to prevent x y z”.

What are the general thoughts? How watertight is an employee handbook?

[The Noise Chap]

Not remotely is the short answer. Companies (usually senior management) often seem to have this unshakable belief in the backside-covering mystical properties of an employee handbook and its abilities to solve all ills. In H&S, pretty much every element of safety has the same format:

> Identify the risks
> Do something about the risks
> Tell people about the risks
> Tell people what they need to do in light of the risks
> Monitor compliance that people are doing what they are supposed to
> Retrain, reinstruct and round we go again

Having a procedure or a handbook is only one part of the process, managers still have to tell everyone about it and monitor and supervise compliance. If they issue it but then do nothing else they are about as effective as a guff in a hurricane. Noise is my speciality now and I've lost count of the number of senior managers confidently telling me 'we've given them PPE, it's in a procedure and we've told them to wear it so that's all we can do', then looking crestfallen when told no, that is not all you have to do and you've done nothing to protect yourselves yet.

[Alexis]

Interesting post which is wide open to the Employee Handbook being legal or not if used in court cases with a reminder that it can also bite the organisation on the bahookey.

Keeley v Fosroc International Limited.

Taken from Croner-i link https://app.croneri.co.uk/law-and-guida ... a-civ-1277

SUMMARY.
"An enhanced redundancy payment provision contained in a staff handbook was held to be incorporated into an employee's contract of employment."

The following link from Personnel Today, with background, shows both sides of the handbook being contractual or not.
Mr. Keely, on appeal, won his case.

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/enhan ... ional-ltd/

A further case to look up is that of Department for Transport v Sparks.