Do You Really Need An Employment Policy Manual?Does your company need an employment policy manual? Let me answer your question with a question. Does the Department of Motor Vehicles need a Driver's manual for those wanting to get a license to drive in their state, or is it up to the Highway Patrolman to decide what he feels is right or wrong? This is just one example of many where we need manuals to let everyone know what is and is not ok. Business owners and managers are always debating whether or not they need an employee policy manual for their organization. Why I'm not sure since it only spells out the expectations and policies to their employees. Why in the world would their employees need to know what the rules and policies are when their supervisor is fully capable of making them up along the way? Yes, their supervisors can decide on the fly what is acceptable behavior and what isn't. Anyone with any common sense knows that the boss can terminate anyone they want! When an organization doesn't have a policy manual and decides that someone is not conducting themselves in the proper way they can just terminate them. After all, the employee should have known that it wasn't acceptable behavior. Anyone with any common sense knows that the boss can terminate anyone they want for any reason they want, right? Good luck with that theory as your having your going out of business sale to pay off the huge law suit that you're going to lose. An employment policy manual is an extremely valuable document for not only your employees but equally as much for your supervisors. Just one of the important pieces to the manual is its ability to spell out the rules for proper and improper behavior, such as, attendance, smoking, use of computer, use of telephone, breaks, lunch period, dress codes, tardiness, unscheduled absences, sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, gambling, drinking or drugs, etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg for what policies and procedures you may want to implement into your employee policy manual. If you offer any type of benefits such as vacation or sick pay, the employment policy manual can clearly define how your program works so that you are not arguing later in a court room over what you said and what they heard. If you are fortunate enough to offer health benefits they can be included in the manual to define who is eligible and who isn't. What about the state and federally required benefits or programs such the American's with Disabilities Act (ADA), or the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Including these and many more in your policy manual will help to not only inform your employees, but will also help to protect you later in court if challenged. Anyone such as me that has ever had their policies challenged in a court room or other legal proceeding will certainly appreciate the fact that their employment policy manual helped to confirm that their employee knew or should have known what the policy was. I have been challenged on everything from disciplinary issues that led to termination, to our vacation and sick time policies. In every situation our organization prevailed and largely due to the fact that we had our policies outlined in our employee policy manual that the employee had signed for. May God Bless You! 
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