How to write a handbook employees will read | Brightmine (2024)

Published: May 14, 2024 | by Kate Bischoff, Attorney and HR Consultant

The employee handbook should be the most-read document at any organization. It sets behavior and performance expectations for employees and lets employees know what they can expect from their employer. It showcases the employer’s values, culture and mission. Of course, the information in the handbook is only useful if employees read it. Human Resources professionals often must remind employees and managers to check the handbook when they have a question. So what can organizations do to make sure employees spend some time with the handbook?

Most organizations require employees to read the employee handbook within the first week of employment, and most employees sign a document acknowledging that they have read it and understand the policies within it. Yet most HR professionals appreciate that this practice is often just a check-the-box exercise for compliance purposes. It is likely that many employees do not read each policy during onboarding and not enough will return to the handbook when they have questions it could answer.

While there are many reasons why employees don’t read the handbook—it’s too long, it isn’t meaningful to them at the moment, there’s too much legalese, they can’t find it—with some fairly simple tweaks, you can make your employee handbook more appealing to readers and more likely to be read.

What’s in it for employees?

Workplace culture

New employees read the handbook to gauge whether their decision to join the organization was a smart one. The handbook often includes a welcome statement that describes the history of the organization, its culture, mission and values—such as sustainability, giving back to the community, or diversity and inclusion.

These statements are more than just fluff, they have real meaning to employees who want to see they are working for an organization that cares about the same things they care about. When the messages in the handbook are consistent with what the employee learned during the interview process, it reaffirms the employee’s decision. When they are not consistent, the new hire’s start can be rocky, and their tenure may be short.

Expectations

Employees read the handbook to understand what is expected of them. For instance, when an employee is facing a potential conflict of interest or a problem with a client or co-worker who may be harassing them, the employee will often turn to the handbook before talking to a manager or HR. In a difficult situation, the employee wants to know what they should do and what their employer expects them to do. For this reason alone, it’s critical that the handbook be easy to access, read and understand.

Employees also read the handbook to understand what they can expect from their employer. A newly pregnant employee or soon-to-be parent may not want to share their happy news until the end of the first trimester, but they will want to know what type and how much leave is available to them. Clear, readily available leave information in the handbook can be a source of comfort during a time of excitement and uncertainty.

An employee may also consult the handbook when they need to confirm or prove they are right about certain workplace issues. For example, an employee may believe a manager was wrong about how overtime was calculated. The employee may turn to the overtime provision in the handbook to show the manager (or HR) that their overtime was calculated incorrectly. Having clear expectations in the handbook can help an organization stay compliant and even help train managers.

Make Your Handbook More Appealing and Readable

No magic trick exists to make employees enjoy reading a handbook, but there are a few things organizations can do to make reading the handbook less of a chore.

Read the handbook from the perspective of a new employee

When going through the revision process or when drafting a new handbook, imagine you are a new employee. As you read it, ask yourself: Would you want to work for the organization? Did you learn everything a new employee should know? Are any policies cringe-inducing? Are you using too many acronyms or organizational jargon that someone new to the company would not understand? Reading it through this lens will help you determine if the handbook speaks to and is meaningful for its intended audience.

Make the handbook inviting to read

Have the organization’s marketing team look over the handbook, add the company logo, graphics and other design elements that make the handbook more attractive to readers. Marketing teams know how to make documents visually pleasing and easier to read, and their branding and design efforts will show the handbook is valued by leadership and reflects the organization. When the organization goes through a rebrand, make sure the handbook is included in the process

Remember employees are the intended audience

Draft the handbook using straightforward, everyday language that employees will understand. If the handbook includes Latin phrases like “in loco parentis” or “quid pro quo,” cut them out. This is not meant to suggest that employees are not smart, but simply that the easier the handbook is to read, the more likely the audience will read it.

Eliminate as much legalese as possible to be effective and readable while still being legally compliant. One way to accomplish this is by incorporating model language suggested by relevant government agencies, when available.

Be gender neutral

Use the singular they instead of he or she and use them instead of him or her. Use of gender-neutral language showcases an employer’s desire to include all employees.

Consider explaining in your introduction to the handbook the decision to use gender-neutral language, even in cases where it is not considered grammatically correct. For example, employers may want to say, “We support each employee’s choice to identify as male, female or nonbinary. The language in our handbook is reflective of our support though our replacement of any pronouns associated with gender (he, she, him, her, his) with the pronouns they, them and their.”

Don’t be inconsistent

Organizations that don’t follow or enforce their own policies demonstrate that they don’t really mean what they say in the handbook, which undermines the handbooks authority and value. For example, an organization may prohibit the possession of alcohol at work. Yet if an employee could find a beer in the breakroom refrigerator after a work celebration or in the chief executive’s lower right drawer, this type of inconsistency will signal that other expectations described in the handbook don’t have to be taken seriously.

Be transparent, even about the bad stuff

Do not shy away from difficult statements. For example, if the organization requires an employee to pay the entire health insurance premium while out on leave, clearly explain how that works. If an employee will be disciplined for working overtime without manager approval, state that. It is important that every expectation in the handbook is clear and straightforward.

Consider how you address the reader

One option is to vary how you refer to employees in policies—either as “you” or “employee.” Use “you” to refer to the employee when you want the employee to see themself in the policy, and “employee” or they when you do not.

For example, when describing what an employee should do if they experience or witness harassment, the handbook could say “you should report the conduct to a manager or HR as soon as practicable.” Using you sets the expectation the employee will do something the organization wants them to do. The same is true when the handbook describes a benefit to the employee. In another example, a bereavement policy could include this language: “If you suffer the loss of an immediate family member, talk to your manager about leave.” The more employees can see themselves in the handbook, the more likely they are to keep reading it.

When the organization does not want employees to see themselves in a policy, use “employee” or “they.” A reference to discipline, for example, could say: “Employees who engage in harassment will be disciplined” and “Employees may receive a verbal or written warning.” Avoid the use of the pronoun “you” here because it suggests the reader will be disciplined.

Put the handbook where employees will read it

Make the handbook easily accessible. Place several copies of the handbook in breakrooms, add electronic versions to employee-facing apps (like payroll apps), and create links to it on intranet sites. Remember where it is so that when changes are made, they can be reflected in every copy. No employee should have to ask where they can find the handbook.

Cut the fluff

Everything in the handbook should have real meaning to employees. Take out every policy that does not set an expectation for employees. When there’s too much fluff, the handbook becomes too long and will look like it will take hours to read. Don’t let the handbook be imposing.

Also, don’t try to provide an answer for every scenario, and don’t commit to policies and practices in the handbook if you won’t want to commit to them in reality. For example, don’t say that if an employee does something to warrant discipline, the discipline will always start with a verbal warning, unless you’re certain you will never want the option to terminate someone on the spot. Being so specific can box you in—and employees may hold you to it.

Make it accessible

Make sure the handbook can be read in every way that employees read. Employees with visual impairments may need to read the handbook with a screen reader. If English is not the first language of some employees, have the handbook translated. In fact, some jurisdictions require certain policies to be translated into other languages.

Keep it professional

An employee handbook is often an exhibit in litigation, and that means it needs to be taken seriously. If the handbook uses cute or creative ways to grab employees’ attention, ask if the creativity will look silly in front of a judge or jury. A handbook can be engaging, but it should not distract from its objective of setting serious expectations for employees and organizations. Use of video or GIFs may reduce the seriousness of the document.

Reinforce the importance of the handbook at every opportunity

If the organization has regular team meetings or newsletters, use them as opportunities to mention the policies contained in the handbook. Regularly talk to managers about the handbook and how they are responsible for certain policies (like attendance, dress code, etc.). The handbook should be a document that is regularly discussed and not shoved in a corner and forgotten.

A final word

It’s a difficult task to get the handbook right, but it’s certainly possible. It’s also possible to make the handbook valuable to employees across the organization. If the handbook is easy to read and lays out the expectations for employees and the employer in a thoughtful and easy-to-understand way, employees will turn to the handbook when they need it—and chances are high they will actually read it.