Doing business in California can be fantastic and frustrating at the same time. There are so many huge opportunities to explode in sales (if you are great at Wooing your Customers), but the labor regulations can sometimes overwhelm. Rules. Rules. Rules. There are regs on OT, breaks, sick leave, discrimination, voting rights, and so much more.
As your company grows, you’ll reach a point when you realize it’s time to get more professional in how we’re handling our rules and policies. You realize that it’s time to get an Employee Handbook.
What are the benefits of an Employee Handbook? Besides offering some lawsuit protection, a handbook helps to get everyone “on the same page” when it comes to expectations, benefits, and potential consequences for failing to work as expected.
Other benefits to having an employee handbook are listed by the info blog HR Quick Answers:
Fairness in employment. An employee handbook sets your employee policies and procedures in writing for your California business. With a well designed California employee manual you will gain many benefits: 1) your HR policies will be clear and consistent, 2) you will lower the chance of misunderstanding or frustration among staff, 3) you will offer protection to the business, and 4) you will equip your supervisors with a good HR resource. No matter what type of business you have, an employee handbook is an essential for getting your California employee policies in writing.
But that leads to the question of how do you get an employee handbook. Well, there are 3 main options in front of you:
1. Download a Template. Priced from $30 to $350, these templates will require you to invest many hours into personalizing the handbook to your state, employee count, and business specifics. Templates do NOT have typical industry-specific policies. A good template from the California Chamber of Commerce coasts about $250.
2. Have a consulting company design a customized handbook for you. Typical price is between $1,500 and $3,000. Pricing might seem high, but consider how many hours it would take one of your employees to create this from a good template (anywhere from 3-4 weeks of work). Even if the employee is only getting paid $10 per hour, it will cost you at least as much as it would hiring a consulting company, and the consultant will have quite a bit more experience at what should (and shouldn’t) be in that manual.
3. Go to a labor law lawyer. This is by far the most expensive option, but you will receive a California employee handbook that considers all the legal intricacies of your business (though maybe not industry-specific policies). This is a good option for complex businesses concerned about employee lawsuits. Typical pricing ranges from $5,000 to $9,000.
Another option is to hire a lawyer to simply review a handbook you had designed DIY or by a consultant.
At New Wind, we design customized Employee Handbooks. We invite you to contact us for a complementary 30-minute Phone Consult, where we’ll talk about your business and what you want/need as written policies in an employee handbook. Schedule a consult now- it will only cost you 30 minutes of your time.
New Wind Business Solutions 