Employee Handbook Tips for Restaurant Managers
An employee handbook can be a very useful resource for both your managers and your staff. It is your opportunity to explain key benefits along with detailing policies that you require staff members to follow. A well-done handbook engages employees, helps them understand what is expected of them, explains key benefits, and can potentially protect your restaurant. It can be a big project to take on, but a handbook is key to organizing your human resource practices. Here are a few tips for your employee handbook:
Review your Handbook at least once a year
This is particularly important in CA. Every year there are likely changes to the law in your state and to the federal government and it is important that your handbook includes these changes. It is best to review either at the end of the year or the very beginning. This can help you make sure you have all of the year’s changes included. When deciding what laws need to be included, reference your employee count. Laws often apply to a particular organization size. If the organization size has changed or the law has changed to apply to different employee count, it is important to include the changes in your handbook. For instance, this year California Family Rights Act now applies to organizations with 5 or more employees so those employers should now make sure to include this in their handbook. Alternatively, Family Medical Leave Act (federal leave) still only applies to organizations with 50 or more employees so if your restaurant has 10 employees, you do not need to include Family Medical Leave in your handbook. Other changes to keep in mind are those for your municipality. Many cities have their own sick leave policies and additional laws. The policy that is most beneficial to the employee is the one that should be detailed in your handbook and followed by your business.
Have your employees sign off on any changes
Anytime you make changes to your handbook, you should notify your employees. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to reprint the entire handbook. You can print out the new policy and have the employee sign off of it. For instance, if you updated your uniform policy to be a black collared shirt instead of a white collared shirt, you can print this policy out and have all of your employees sign off on the change. Of course, if there are several changes, you should provide the updated handbook to all employees. When you do this, have them sign a Handbook Receipt Acknowledgement so you have documentation that they know they are responsible for following the policies in the handbook. This can help your business if disciplinary and counseling actions become necessary with an employee. As a note, your employees should all sign a Handbook Receipt Acknowledgement as part of their new hire packet when they start employment at your restaurant as well. The Handbook Receipt acknowledgement and any changes that have been signed off by the employee should be stored in their employee file.
Make sure you actually follow all the policies in your Handbook
On a basic level, this can help prevent confusion for your employees and managers. All policies present should be followed and understood. Your managers especially should be held accountable to know the ins and out of your restaurant’s policies. If you can show that all employees signed off and that you follow all the policies, it can be potentially helpful in determining that your business did it’s due diligence in communicating to the employee and that the employee was fully informed at the time they failed to follow a particular policy.
Include who your employees should go to for issues
Most of the times, this will be their manager but there should be additional resources that the employee can turn to in case the employee is having an issue and that issue is with their manager. This is particularly important for your harassment prevention policy. Your employees should know who to go to if they feel uncomfortable going to their manager or feel their manager did not deal with their complaint in an effective way. Having a backup contact can encourage employees to come forward with issues, which allows your restaurant to deal with them in a timely manner. Having a backup contact listed can also help in situations where an employee’s manager is out and they need to immediately report something. Again, you want to know about issues as they come up so you can deal with them appropriately and timely.
Make sure you have a non-harassment, non-discrimination, non-bullying statement
Your handbook should include a non-harassment/non-discrimination/non-bullying statement even if your new hire packet also has it. This is a policy where redundancy is a good thing. The non-harassment statement should include all the protected classes in your state, detail what harassment is and what behavior is unacceptable, and who an employee should go to if they are having issues/witnessed harassment (again, provide more than one contact person). This statement is key to protecting your restaurant. Additionally, you should ensure that the employee goes through 1 hour of sexual harassment training upon hire and 2 hours of sexual harassment training for new managers when they are hired. Then continue your sexual harassment trainings every 2 years after that.
Include an At-Will Statement
Your handbook should include an At-Will statement (unless your business is in a State that is not at will). This statement says that either you or the employee can terminate employment at any time with or without notice and with or without cause. It establishes that nothing in your handbook should be understood as creating a contract or a guarantee of employment, which can protect your business in the event that an employee is dismissed. It should be noted that, the term “At Will” can be interpreted differently especially if the reason for releasing someone is protected by law such as discrimination.
KEY TAKE -AWAYS
Your handbook should not only detail out the policies your employees should follow but also explain key benefits that employees should know about. Having your employees sign off on all changes and double checking that all policies that apply to your organization are included in your handbook can help to mitigate issues that can arise in your restaurant. At minimum, you should review your employee handbook once a year. Consider hiring an HR professional or lawyer to help you complete it (or at least review what you have). This is a service that Vine Solutions offers! To learn more, check out our services.