What's In An Employee Handbook Anyway?
A written handbook can help your office staff understand important rules and policies and protect you from many potential liabilities. An proper employee handbook for a medical practice provides all staff members with a guide of workplace protocol. Most employee handbooks contain three major guides known as business rules, policies and expectations.
Business rules generally define specific instructions on how certain day to day operations should be performed. When implementing business rules, it is important to understand and prioritize which goals must be met. If the goals should ever change this would heavily affect the implementation process. Therefore, designing business rules and a true plan of action should be designed separately for the most powerful and effective work experience.
Business policies establish the rules of conduct within a work atmosphere. "They not only describe the responsibilities for the employer and the employees, they also create a frame of reference for handling the countless issues that arise in an organization." Some policies you may be familiar with are as follows: Sick leave policy, Paid vacation policy, Code of conduct and Equal employment opportunity (anti-discrimination). Policies are some of the most vital when reading an employee handbook. Leaving no grey area can help define clear lines as well as reduce the risk of liabilities.
Business expectations are the requirement to act and present oneself in a specific manner. Some examples of business expectations would include aligning with your companies core values and culture. Doing this would ensure every staff member provides customers and clients with a consistent tone and feeling. Business expectations would also include to maintain professionalism and to always be reliable. That way when you walk amongst colleagues, everyone is held to the same standards.
n summary, included in the employee handbook is a guide of what to expect, how to act and rules and policies to follow. If an employee should have a general question about a procedure or expectation, they should be able to refer to the employee manual specially tailored to the business they work for. Having this manual in place will ensure there are clear lines, no grey areas and a structure for them to follow and align with for optimal work ethic.
Creating a handbook can be time consuming, and hiring a consultant or outside company to create one can cost thousands of dollars.
Fortunately, PracticeCOMMAND has an excellent employee handbook template for medical practices that can be downloaded as a Word document, allowing you to edit the template as needed and create a great handbook for your practice.
Simply click here to create your free account, and download our Medical Practice Handbook template from our free resource center. You'll also get instant access to amazing discounts on everything from FedEx to VOIP phone systems, and the ability to shop for products from hundreds of vendors, compare prices and check out all in one place!