employee handbook on intranet

Does anyone have their company's employee handbook on a internal website or intranet? We are thinking of transforming our paper handbook into electronic format so we don't have to head to Kinko's every time a policy change is needed.

What are the legal requirements of informing employees about this? Can we just email and announce to everyone where the webpage is and then have them sign & return a paper acknowledgement after they have looked through the website? Looking for any suggestions!

thanks -


Comments

  • 19 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Do all your ee's have access to your intranet site? Our's is posted on our intranet and those who have access to it do not receive a hard copy. We have them sign a form acknowledging they have received information pertaining to the posting. Those who do not have a company assigned computer receive a hard copy and they sign a receipt for it.
  • We do not have a handbook...but our departments do place policies and things on the intranet site so everyone has easy access...

    we are moving toward an online handbook (however slowly) and have discussed requiring employees to sign a verification that they've reviewed the site and are aware of it.

    And the bonus is that it's less expensive and kills fewer trees. Updating is easier to.

    As for notifying employees...send an company-wide email...bight colors advising of the new location of the handbook....

    maybe even do a "kick off" of some kind...

    how do you implement policies??? If you follow that methodology, it should provide some guidance.


  • [font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-22-04 AT 03:45PM (CST)[/font][br][br]HR Traci" "Whoa back there, traci" I don't think our world is quite ready to do away with the paper trail and the opportunity of the company to have written proof that every one got the EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK AND AMENDMENTS TO SAME! It is great that your company is capable of going into cyberspace but if I'm an ee, you will leave me behind, because I do not have immediate access to a computer less on the internet! I have just bought a computer and it is in my home and waiting for someone like my 14 year old granddaughter to come out and hook up the "Damn thing". It will be several days before I am ready to communicate out there in the modern cyberspace world, that is the universe is it not?

    I have our EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK on a disk and saved to my company hard drive, whatever that is! We have made a couple of changes in the last 5 years but that is all. Changes and changes all have a paper trail and signatures to support the receipt thereof. I suggest you like wise live with the paper trail, it will pay you dividends in the future. Enhancing your company position to make the EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK more readily available for your employees to read is an absolute plus, plus for the employer. Ya'll are covering all gaps to counter an employee's chance of claiming "NO ONE EVER TOLD ME THAT, I WISHED I HAD KNOWN! THAT READS LIKE MY 6 GRADE EXCUSE FOR FAILING TO TURN MY HOMEWORK IN FOR REVIEW BY THE TEACHER.

    PORK
    Traci if you will e-mail me your e-mail address I will provide you with something special. Oh, by the way welcome on board, glad you have choosen to speak up and be a live participant instead of a lissener only.

    The other white meat is good and oh so PORKY.
  • Pork - Well, we all have to catch up with modern times sooner or later! We are a small company with about 100 non-union employees. About 85% with computer access here at work. We will still be providing hard copy to those who request it and everyone will have to sign off on an acknowledgement that they received & read it, either on paper or PC.

    Because of a couple ownership changes over the last few years, there have been updated versions put out every 18 mos. or so, and I am really looking forward to this being electronic format!

    Thanks for the "welcome aboard" - I am in the office only p/t, so my time is pretty compressed -that's why I haven't posted that much yet!


  • We have it on an intranet and it is infinetly easier to maintain and cost effective. We do an acknowledgement form signed by everyone that they know where it is. We have PC's that employees can use to access the intranet, if they don't already have one for their job. If you have a company newsletter, or a bulletin board, you can make an announcement there. Also, an email to each department's point of contact announcing the location of the handbook is a good idea. I like the idea someone suggested about having some sort of theme celebration. Maybe have cookies or other goodies available at a table in a central location. Do a contest with questions that will require the employees to actually look up information in the handbook.

    Good luck!
  • [font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-22-04 AT 06:51PM (CST)[/font][br][br]"We have it on an intranet and it is infinetly easier to maintain and cost effective. We do an acknowledgement form signed by everyone that they know where it is. We have PC's that employees can use to access the intranet, if they don't already have one for their job."

    Ditto here. However, when a change to major policies occur, i.e. not only are we I think required to do so, but we give 2 months notice to the change. We have a form signed by each ee acknowledging where they can find it, who can help them find it & if there are changes. It works great & any ee requesting a printed copied is accomodated - as long as they know that when the 2 month notice comes around - they need to request a new copy or otherwise find the information on the intranet site. I do have to say that we are a small company - less than 120 & non-union. I would feel less comfortable with this approach (even though it makes more sense) if we were larger. Mainly because we are smaller, so there's less folks to communicate the changes to & it's easier to get them access to a computer - if we were larger I would worry people would slip through the cracks.
  • thanks for your input! I love the idea of the contest for looking up answers in the handbook! Then I will know someone actually read a page in there before they were in trouble or looking to sue!
  • We are currently paralleling the hard copy that is handed out to all EEs with various acknowledgements signed by the EEs, plus we maintain it on the intranet. I am in process of revising the handbook, about 90% complete, and we are considering the intranet only with hard copies to those that request it and those that do not have ready access.

    We are also a small company, 60 EEs today, and do not have some of the issues mentioned in this thread.
  • We have had our Employee Handbook on our Intranet for a couple of years now and it's great. We notify employees of the changes via the Webpage as well as a synopsis with their paycheck stubs (that each employee receives). We also go over this in New Employee Orientation and have each new employee sign an acknowledgement that they realize the handbook is on the Intranet and it is their responsibility to read it. We have one office that is not hooked up to our Intranet (yet) and we furnish hard copies to the supervisors.

    Before doing this, I was constantly trying to figure out which "version" of the handbook an employee had from which they were quoting "verse and scripture". I hated the fact that that updated information was not getting filtered to the employee via the supervisor, etc.

    Our employees all have access to a computer in the building and they can also access our website from their home computer through an "Employees Only" button on the website.

    Good luck....you will love it.
  • Rockie - thanks for idea of putting synopsis of policy changes as a payroll stuffer once handbook is on intranet. When you changed to e-format, did you require ee's to turn in their old handbooks (assuming they could find them)?
  • We did require this, but, as you said, a lot of them couldn't find them. We also put at the bottom of the first page of the updated handbook
    the revision date and "This version of handbook supercedes any previous versions". Just a little added CYA.
  • [font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-23-04 AT 04:49PM (CST)[/font][br][br]In a workshop I attended on writing P&P they addressed this and mentioned one item you might find interesting. They recommended having your online handbook clearly state that only the online version is valid. As soon as something is printed it becomes obsolete.

    If someone prints a page, a statement to the effect of "This policy, having been printed, is now obsolete. Please check the official handbook on the intranet for the most current verion." appears on the printout.

    This prevents someone trying to use an old printout as their defense to something.


  • I like that idea. Consider it copied and utilized.
  • thanks for the info! I will definitely incorporate that to our procedures for this.
  • It is extremely helpful to put an effective date on any policy or revision. This way you don't have to deal with issues like "if it's printed it's obsolete". There are lots of good reasons to print policies even when they are only stored online. (Ex: disciplinary procedings) Keep copies of the old versions for at least a couple of years. Then when you get an EEOC charge or a lawsuit and they ask for copies of the policy that was current at the time of a given incident, you can provide them. We have been rewriting all the corporate policies for the last year. As they are approved, we put a notice in the weekly company news/email with a few sentences highlighting any significant changes and a link to the policy on our intranet. Hopefully it is making people who have been here for years take a refresher look. (In addition to training, of course!)

    Carrie
  • We actually have our Corporate Policy Manual on the intranet. All policies are available for anyone to see.
  • Traci:
    All of our employees are provided with computers and access to the internet - therefore we use our intranet extensively for employee communication and access to policies, forms, etc. We have field offices across the country so this is a very valuable way of getting the same info to all. All new hires receive a binder that is reviewed during orientation that includes our Policies & Procedures aka Employee Handbook, as well as other info (SPD's, forms, etc). We do a brief review of the highlights because let's face it, how many people are REALLY going to read it?? They sign an Acknowledgement Form at that time. Any changes to the Handbook are sent out via an Announce e-mail (a copy of which is kept by me as proof that it went out to all) with directions to review it on the intranet & print another copy. As far as legal requirements, I'm not an att'y but whenever I've consulted the "experts" about distributing items via e-mail &/or intranet I've been told that it is an acceptable means of communication. Keep proof that you sent it. Sometimes, like with HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practice info you can set your e-mail to provide proof of delivery that can be extremely helpful.

    Hope this helps.
Sign In or Register to comment.