employee manual to ex-employees?

pattyo

Can our company be sued if an ex-employee wants a copy of the employee manual and we refuse?

The signed Acknowledgement states: (in part)

I will not reveal the contents of this Manual to anybody outside the Company, except retained professionals, without express permission of Management

marc

I am not sure about AZ, but in Nevada, the ex EE's do not have a "right" to the manual. If the ex EE does sue you for some reason, it is likely you would be required to produce it under subpoena, along with lots of other documents. Do you think providing it now will make the ex-EE more likely or less likely to sue you? I would guess they will look it over very closely to try and come up with reasons to sue you rather than not. So why make it easier for them?

deniseE

I agree.

dynamite9551

hopefully you have a copy of the acknowledge that the ex-employee signed when they received the copy of the employee handbook - therefore they already have one. you're not required to give another copy to an ex-employee. in any event, you're not required to give one to the ex-EE after-the-fact anyway - the handbooks are for "current" employees. they should have asked for one before they left - not after!

System

Our handbook says it's the company's property and must be returned upon termination.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

Don D

"I will not reveal the contents of this Manual to anybody outside the Company, except retained professionals, without express permission of Management."

First, it's very unlikely that you could enforce such an outrageous clause in a handbook. Not only is it unenforceable, it's extremely vague. Who might define 'retained professional'? If I'm Hispanic and hire an interpreter to read the handbook to me in Spanish, and the interpreter is a school teacher, that person has just qualified as a retained professional. I suppose my plumber is a professional. And if an attorney agrees to speculatively read over the handbook to decide if he wants to take my case, he is a professional but I have not yet retained him, so I am in automatic violation of the contractual agreement I signed. And I am fairly certain that it would automatically violate the National Labor Relations Act if the handbook were used in an employee meeting with a union organizer and the company tried to enforce that clause.

Secondly, I would no more give an ex-employee a handbook than I would an applicant'

Rockie

No, I would not give an ex-employee a copy of the Employee Handbook. If there is a legal reason for this information to be divulged, ithe request should come from an attorney.

On the other hand, if an employee still has "friends" within the company, I am sure they will get a copy of whatever they need.

It amazes me that employees who previously worked for our company often know as much about what is going on within our four walls as employees who currently work for us.

pattyo

In the past we have required our employees to return the hard copy of our manual upon separation of employment. We have it on an intranet site which they could download if they wish but its still exclusive to employees having access to company information. We are now using an internet website so anyone can access information regarding our benefits, forms, etc.

My dilemma is putting our ee manual on the internet also since in the past it was not made available to anyone outside the company. I do not want it out there but some management does. Their argument now is that we open ourselves up to legal action by denying access to the manual in the first place.

Don D

I'm sure that your position would be more vulnerable if you did not allow your current employees access to the handbook. I know of companies that withhold it, believe it or not. But, I cannot imagine where they might get the notion that it must be available to the public or you'd risk some legal disadvantage.

Rockie

Our practice has an internet website, but we also have an intranet site. We only post the handbook on the intranet site...not the internet site. I'm not familiar with employers posting their handbooks on their internet site.

If you don't have both, maybe your IS people could limit who could access the handbook portion via a password, etc.

pattyo

Yes, we have both. However, the argument is that we should have ALL benefit and employee information in one location. A password would be a good idea.

My other concern is that this benefit website service we now subscribe to charges us for every change. I'm concerned that if we change any provisions in the handbook and maintain the manual quarterly (which was suggested) we do not have current information available to employees. We can notify them of the policy changes via e-mail but then aren't we open to more liability if they say they either didn't get it or if they did, they didn't open it, etc. I'm sure we could track it but seems like alot of trouble for the "what if's".

Am I overly concerned?

Don D

I think the answer is, yes, you're overly concerned. A policy and procedures manual and employee handbook are operational guides, not Bibles. You mention liability several places. I can stretch my imagination to a scenario where you might lose a unemployment appeal, for example, if you terminated an employee for two incidents of no-call, when your handbook clearly says three and you try to convince the hearing officer that you recently changed the handbook from 3 to 2 but had not yet distributed that information to the workforce. You'd lose it. But, in the grand scheme of things, that's minutia. When changes go into effect, they are enforced and managed from an immediate point forward, not at some mythical point in time when it is assumed everybody has read the change, indicated understanding and gotten comfortable with it.

A disclaimer in your handbook would always be helpful, such as: This handbook is maintained by the Human Resources Department and is published on our (web) site for the use and information of our employees. We update the site quarterly. The official, current text of all policies contained herein is available for employee examination in the HR offices. To the extent that a policy or procedure may not have been updated on this site yet, the official copy of the manual in the HR office will prevail.