As a business owner, how do you formally communicate to your workforce your organization’s history, mission, values, policies, and procedures? As an employee, where can you find answers about the expectations of your employment? For employers and employees, an employment handbook is a critical resource. At its core, an employment handbook describes the expectations organizations have for their employees and what employees can expect from the organization.
Handbooks are valuable for many reasons. First, handbooks guide compliance with federal and state laws and regulations. Second, handbooks include policies, processes, and procedures which are intended to cover all aspects of the employment relationship. Lastly, handbooks are living documents that should be reviewed and updated routinely. Just as organizations evolve, so do their policies and compliance requirements.
Zywave is a Human Capital Management (HCM) platform that all Brewers Association (BA) members have access to, free of charge! Zywave offers users numerous human resources (HR) tools and below is just one of the many practical applications for Zywave in your brewery.
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Using Zywave to Build Your Employment Handbook
Creating an employment handbook can be a tedious and time-consuming project. Fortunately, the Zywave Handbook Builder makes the process quick and simple! Just answer a few questions, upload your logo, and Zywave will do the rest, ensuring you have a thorough and legally compliant employment handbook to distribute.
1. If you haven’t already, login to your Zywave account, using your BA member credentials.
2. Open the Zywave Handbook Builder App and click Build New Handbook to get started! You can also access the handbook builder by clicking “Handbooks” on the left side panel.
3. Start with the basics: Once you have launched the handbook builder, Zywave will prompt you to input some basic company information such as the title of your handbook and the states in which your company operates. Once you have selected the states, Zywave will automatically add in state-specific policies for your handbook where applicable.
- Branding: The branding page allows you to customize your handbook with your company logo, headers, footers, and note the date that the handbook was most recently updated.
- Formatting: Here, you can determine what terminology you would like to use for your handbook, and how your organization will be referred to throughout the document.
- Click Save and move on to the next section.
4. Build the content: You can now start to customize the content in your handbook. Zywave will provide you with recommended policies, grouped into sections by theme. Click Start to begin working through each section.
5. Customize to meet your needs: As you work through each section, you can choose whether to keep or exclude suggested policies and signature pages. You are also able to make edits to the policies you plan to keep.
Zywave will ask you to make selections about your business in order to customize the content to meet your unique needs:
6. Download and review: Click the download button at the top of the page and double check the content of your handbook for accuracy. If needed, you can even request to receive a quote to have your handbook translated into Spanish!
7. Save for later: When you download your handbook, you’ll be given the option to save it as a PDF or Word document. We recommend doing both! Having a Word version saved will allow you to make quick edits as needed in the future.
Remember, you can always log back into Zywave to update your handbook too!
Looking for Additional Guidance as You Create or Update Your Handbook?
Check out these other great resources from Zywave:
- Employee Handbook Guide
- HR Insights: Employee Handbook Sections
- Employee Handbooks: Common Legal Mistakes
The above is just one of the many ways you can utilize Zywave in your organization. Zywave offers countless resources including templates, workplace posters, document and question builders, and state specific guidance to keep your brewery in compliance with federal and state laws and guidelines.
Not a member yet? Join the BA and gain access to all that Zywave has to offer, included in your BA membership!
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