Webinar: Build a Smarter Employee Handbook Before the New Year

Susannah Forbes | Human Resources Business Partner, CommPayHR

Susannah brings extensive HR expertise helping our clients navigate HR compliance, workforce management and employee relations with practical, business-focused guidance.

 

Jenny Beatty | Training & Enablement Specialist,
Mineral

Jenny helps employers simplify HR compliance and works closely with organizations to create, maintain, and update employee handbooks that stay aligned with changing federal and state requirements.

Susannah Forbes: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today. We’re excited to introduce to you the Smart Employee Handbook Tool in the Commonwealth Compliance Center, our go-to HR resource.

Susannah Forbes: This session is co-sponsored with our trusted partner, Mineral, and we’re thrilled to have Jenny with us today to walk you through the Commonwealth Compliance Center and the Smart Employee Handbook features. So, during this session today, Jenny’s going to cover how to put a handbook together that meets federal and state requirements.

Susannah Forbes: Staying up-to-date with changing laws while your handbooks automatically update, so important. And getting expert HR support right when you need it.

Susannah Forbes: So with that, I’m happy to turn things over to Jenny, who will sort of walk us through the Smart Employee Handbook tool, and get us up to date with what it offers. Thanks, Jenny.

Jenny Beatty: Thanks, Susanna. Alright, thanks for the introduction there. So, like she said, my name is Jenny. I am one of the training specialists here at Mineral.

Jenny Beatty: And, we are going to go through, and show you, you know, how easy it is to be able to create the handbook and go through it and keep it updated, and it’s very easy and not time-consuming at all, so…

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so we’re gonna go ahead, and before we get started, there are a couple housekeeping items.

Jenny Beatty: You will notice you’re muted, so that just helps limit any disruptions, but feel free to ask away in the Q&A at the bottom of your screen, and we’ll be happy to answer those questions along the way.

Jenny Beatty: And make sure that you are logged in and ready to follow along. We do find that hands-on experience is one of the best ways to learn, and we’re going to walk through that together to create that handbook, using that Smart Employee Handbook tool, so be prepared.

Jenny Beatty: You’ll also receive a recording of this session in your inbox afterwards, so you can revisit it anytime.

Jenny Beatty: And if you don’t know how to get logged in, or if you’re having issues, please reach out in the Q&A as well.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so we’re gonna go ahead and dive into the agenda.

Jenny Beatty: So, first, I’m going to go over the introduction of what the Commonwealth Compliance Center is really quickly for those of you who may be joining us for the first time.

Jenny Beatty: And then we’ll cover a quick overview of why having an employee handbook is so essential. The chances are, you already know how important it is to have one, and… but you… it doesn’t hurt to reinforce the value again, just very quickly, in case you ever need it in the future.

Jenny Beatty: And then we’ll walk through how to build and maintain your handbook using the Compliance Center. And the main goal today is to walk away from this session with a handbook created, and give you more confidence to manage it on your own. So, without further ado, we’re gonna get started.

Jenny Beatty: So, really quick for those who are new, it’s designed to simplify HR and compliance in the Commonwealth.

Jenny Beatty: Compliance Center. So, it gives you everything you need in one place to tackle even the toughest workplace challenges.

Jenny Beatty: And our goal is to equip you with the right tools and resources to bridge the HR and compliance gaps, especially for those of you that are managing HR responsibilities. You probably don’t have a dedicated team or formal HR training, so you need that additional assistance.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so before we jump into the platform.

Jenny Beatty: Let’s take a moment to discuss why the handbook is so important.

Jenny Beatty: So first, it does set the foundation for your company’s structure by introducing employees to your mission, your values, and what makes your business unique.

Jenny Beatty: It also lays out clear expectations for behavior and performance, helping both employees and leaders stay aligned and consistent.

Jenny Beatty: A handbook is a great place to highlight the benefits your company offers, like time off, health insurance, or retirement plans.

Jenny Beatty: So, employees fully understand what is available to them.

Jenny Beatty: It also plays a key role in helping your business stay compliant with state and federal employment laws by clearly communicating required policies.

Jenny Beatty: And finally, a handbook can help protect your organization by documenting policies and expectations, and this can be critical when responding to legal claims or disputes.

Jenny Beatty: Now, with all that in mind, we’re gonna go ahead and explore how easily it

Jenny Beatty: Excuse me, how easily it is to create and manage a strong, compliant handbook.

Jenny Beatty: So I’m gonna go ahead and turn off my camera.

Jenny Beatty: So I am not being a distraction while I’m walking you through here.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so once you’re logged in, you’re brought to your dashboard or home screen, and that’s going to look like what you see here.

Jenny Beatty: And along the top, you’re gonna notice this navigation bar, on the screen, and… This will

Jenny Beatty: Be all your different tools, but right now we’re going to focus…

Jenny Beatty: on your company settings. So, this avatar on the right.

Jenny Beatty: You would go ahead and hover your mouse over that, and go down to Company under Company Settings.

Jenny Beatty: Now, you always want to make sure this information is as up-to-date as possible, because as your handbooks generate, it’s going to automate your company information from here.

Jenny Beatty: It’s also going to help the system understand what specific policies apply to your company, and so you want to make sure to make sure this is all up to date. So, again, you can take a look at the company name, and then you’ll scroll down, and you’ll make sure your address zips

Jenny Beatty: Zip code, city, and state are correct.

Jenny Beatty: And then, towards the bottom, your number of employees. Now, this is going to be very important when it comes to creating your handbook.

Jenny Beatty: Once that information is completed, you can save settings, and you can do the same if you do have multiple locations.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so next we’re going to go to the second one in here at the navigation bar, and that’s the company policies.

Jenny Beatty: Now, this is going to be your home screen for your Smart Employee Handbook.

Jenny Beatty: So if you click on Company Policies, if you’ve never created a handbook before, this is a great way to start.

Jenny Beatty: Now there’s two ways that you can create a handbook. By clicking on Company Policies, and you have this Create Handbook icon here.

Jenny Beatty: Another way is if you go to Handbooks under Company Policies.

Jenny Beatty: And it’ll be blank if it’s a first time, if it’s your first time coming in here. But you can go to the right of the screen under Create, and create the new handbook.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so there, first of all, there’s going to be 6 pieces of information you absolutely need to have in order for the system to create the handbook.

Jenny Beatty: And since we, updated those settings.

Jenny Beatty: It’s already going to know, you know, your location and the employee count to help set up the basics.

Jenny Beatty: So the first thing when you come in here to do is you’ll want to put in your handbook name. It could be

Jenny Beatty: Just simply your company name, or you may add the company name plus handbook, or employee handbook, whatever you’d like, you can put in this square.

Jenny Beatty: And then when you scroll down, you will put in your company name.

Jenny Beatty: And then, here are the 6 main items that are definitely required.

Jenny Beatty: The first one is going to be to refer to your company, so you’d be able to change it to whatever you need.

Jenny Beatty: Whether it’s, like, corporation or company, you’ll go ahead and fill that out there.

Jenny Beatty: And then, to the right, it’s going to show how do you refer to your employees.

Jenny Beatty: Could be employees, associates, so go ahead and fill that out.

Jenny Beatty: And then, we will have the head of company.

Jenny Beatty: Now, this is where you need to enter whoever’s your founder, your CEO, whoever owns the company, so go ahead and enter that name here.

Jenny Beatty: And then to the right, you’re gonna put in their title.

Jenny Beatty: Underneath, on the left here, this bottom left one, is going to show your primary contact.

Jenny Beatty: Now, this is also required, and you’ll enter the person that your employee should refer to if they have questions on the handbook here.

Jenny Beatty: So, if you’re here in the meeting, you’re probably the primary contact, so go ahead, put your name in, or if you prefer to put in, like, human resources or people operations, you can do that as well.

Jenny Beatty: And then to the right is the last required item.

Jenny Beatty: This is going to be how you refer to your managers or supervisors. So, in the handbook, there will be several instances where it will encourage employees to go to your manager or supervisor, so you just need to let the system know what you call the leaders in the company.

Jenny Beatty: And then this last section here is going to be choosing your states.

Jenny Beatty: So, for example, I have a couple states on mine, but I’m just gonna do my main state to show.

Jenny Beatty: So I’ll click on Illinois, and when I click Add State, it automatically brings in the employee count that I have updated in my company settings for me.

Jenny Beatty: The last thing you see in this section

Jenny Beatty: is going to be the subscribe email alerts for this handbook. You do want to make sure this is highlighted before you save.

Jenny Beatty: This is going to ensure that any policy updates that you need to come into the book and review, will be sent to your emails, letting you know that there is a change that needs to take place in the handbook.

Jenny Beatty: Once you have this information completed, you will be able to save and review policies.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so that is the basic, bare minimum of creating your handbook.

Jenny Beatty: So, you can add a logo in there as well if you need to. A lot of them do not, but you can.

Jenny Beatty: That would appear on your cover letter.

Jenny Beatty: And then once this is all entered and saved, it’s going to bring you to your table of contents.

Jenny Beatty: Now, please keep in mind when you’re creating the handbook, you are an admin user, so the way you see it now as an administrator is not going to be how your employees see it.

Jenny Beatty: So once it’s loaded, it does bring you to this main page here.

Jenny Beatty: And this is going to show your core areas. So the core policies are going to be, like, your federal and best practice policies, and then below that is going to be different, sections that’ll be broken down for, like, your locations, or custom policies will show down here, if you create a custom policy.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so to the right here, you’re gonna see the policy types. It does show a color coding.

Jenny Beatty: With these policy types, you have required, optional, and best practice.

Jenny Beatty: So if we come over here, we’ll just click on this section of the welcome for the policies, and you’re gonna see the welcome policy is showing that it is a best practice.

Jenny Beatty: And then we have the at-will employment, which is required.

Jenny Beatty: Anything that’s best practice or required is going to show in… show green in this slider on the right.

Jenny Beatty: And that means that is going to be shown in your handbook.

Jenny Beatty: You do have the option to edit policies, and we do highly suggest never editing the required policies, because that wording is going to be compliant the way it is.

Jenny Beatty: If I click on another area here.

Jenny Beatty: It’s going to also show the different, Policies for, like, custom policies?

Jenny Beatty: Now, all custom policies are going to show grayed out in this slider area here, so when you first create the handbook, you’re going to have to go through, and just go through those policies to see if it’s something that you have for your company or industry.

Jenny Beatty: And if it is, you just click on the slider, and it’ll highlight it green to add that policy to the handbook.

Jenny Beatty: Now, say that, for instance, Some of these are going to show, requires customization.

Jenny Beatty: So, if I go into the edit…

Jenny Beatty: Everything in black can stay the same.

Jenny Beatty: Because that’s going to already be compliant with the wording. Anything in orange is where you will need to put in that different information to become more customized for your business.

Jenny Beatty: Now, one thing I want to point out here, too, is recently, this past year, we’ve updated it so now you can add links.

Jenny Beatty: images… Insert tables, so it’s becoming more customizable, and you can do more things with these policies.

Jenny Beatty: And now, the great thing about this, also, while you’re editing policies or adding things, say that, oops, I made too many changes, I need to revert back to my original policy.

Jenny Beatty: you can just click on Default Policy on the right here.

Jenny Beatty: And restore to default, and it’ll restore all… everything back to the original policy.

Jenny Beatty: And that’s just a great way for you to, you know, have a peace of mind, knowing you can come in and make edits as you see, and then revert back to the original, just to make sure, you know, the handbook stays in compliance as well.

Jenny Beatty: I do also want to show you, like, these words in the brackets here.

Jenny Beatty: It’s not broken. When you… those 6 required items you did when you first created your handbook.

Jenny Beatty: These brackets here are what’s… so, what is going to be filled in automatically. So here, it’s not going to show that, but if we click on, like, preview policy, the brackets will disappear, and then whatever you had, placed in,

Jenny Beatty: To replace these bracket.

Jenny Beatty: areas is going to show in the actual handbook or in that preview. So it’s not broken.

Jenny Beatty: We do get a lot of questions on that.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so once everything’s completed here, you can save policy, and then you’d move on to the next.

Jenny Beatty: And again, if there are any policies in here that you don’t need, like, if there are a best practice, but you don’t, like, have travel expenses, you can go to the right and click on that bracket, and gray it out, and then it won’t be in your downloaded version of the handbook.

Jenny Beatty: And that is one thing, too. This in the actual platform, is going to be a live version.

Jenny Beatty: So anything that is updated in here…

Jenny Beatty: will be correct, but if you already download another version of it before you made any changes, make sure that you download the newest version after you make changes, because whatever’s downloaded will not be live. It’s only live in the system here.

Jenny Beatty: All right.

Jenny Beatty: So, once you’ve reviewed all of these policies and added them or deleted them out of the handbook.

Jenny Beatty: You will be able to download the handbook.

Jenny Beatty: And… Let’s see here…

Jenny Beatty: So another thing I do want to show you while you’re in here, this Actions button.

Jenny Beatty: So once everything’s completed, But say you do have some custom policies.

Jenny Beatty: You can click on this link custom policy.

Jenny Beatty: And you’ll see my business has a pet policy here, so if you have some saved, you can just add them to the handbook if you’d like. But if you’re brand new and you need to add new custom policies, you’ll click on this new custom policy button.

Jenny Beatty: You’ll come in here and add your, like, the display name will be what’s in the handbook, your internal name, you can have a different name for it if you like, but a lot of them will just use the same name.

Jenny Beatty: Highlighting this as yes means that it’ll automatically be included in new handbooks.

Jenny Beatty: So, if you do make newer handbooks down the road, or additional handbooks, it’ll automatically be included.

Jenny Beatty: Down here, you’ll be able to just put in your policy language.

Jenny Beatty: And then once that’s completed, You’ll be able to come to the top and just hit the save policy.

Jenny Beatty: All right.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so now that we’ve covered a lot about how to create, organize, and edit our handbooks, we’re gonna move on to the next step of actually having and maintaining our handbook in the platform.

Jenny Beatty: So, this is, again, a living document, and the really great thing about this is the self-updates.

Jenny Beatty: So, if you go to the Compliance Center, it’ll give you notifications by email, and it’ll also add the policies that need to be reviewed to your to-do list on the dashboard.

Jenny Beatty: And that’s to help you know exactly when you need to come in, take a look.

Jenny Beatty: Even if you aren’t actively checking the platform, and this helps you from having to do that, so you don’t have to check the platform on a daily basis this way.

Jenny Beatty: So we’re gonna go back here.

Jenny Beatty: And bring up one of my other, handbooks.

Jenny Beatty: First thing I’m gonna do is say that I’m in here, and you see this red flag. That’s your first clue that there is an update that needs to be made in one of the policies.

Jenny Beatty: You’ll also notice with that red flag, that any actions of, like, downloading the handbook are going to be grayed out, and you will not be able to make any… do any actions till that is completed.

Jenny Beatty: I’m gonna go ahead, click on this.

Jenny Beatty: handbook here.

Jenny Beatty: We’re gonna try the other handbook, see if that’ll work.

Jenny Beatty: It removed a bunch for me here.

Jenny Beatty: Alright.

Jenny Beatty: So, On the right here, you’ll see this little orange bubble.

Jenny Beatty: That’s telling me I have one

Jenny Beatty: Handbook policy that needs to be reviewed.

Jenny Beatty: So, going down here, it’ll show a policy alert.

Jenny Beatty: We’ll click on that policy alert.

Jenny Beatty: And then it’s gonna show the, wording about the general alert, the alert date.

Jenny Beatty: And then it shows that this is a required policy, and… So, if we click on…

Jenny Beatty: There’s no updated policy language, because this is going to be removed from the handbook, so there’s no new wording.

Jenny Beatty: So we’d accept policy changes, And it’ll automatically delete that out of the handbook altogether.

Jenny Beatty: Now, one thing I do want to show… on here.

Jenny Beatty: Is, if you’re in a policy.

Jenny Beatty: We’ll go back to this alert here.

Jenny Beatty: If there are changes that need to be made, right here for the updated policy language, you’ll be… it’ll show DIF, or text DIF,

Jenny Beatty: You would click on this area here, and it’ll actually show up on a pop-up showing you in green what the new wording is.

Jenny Beatty: And anything in red and striked out is going to show…

Jenny Beatty: the wording that it’s being replaced by. So, if you ever want to, you could just click on this area here, it shows a text diff.

Jenny Beatty: And it’ll bring that up for you to show the different text

Jenny Beatty: In the changes of the policy.

Jenny Beatty: Also, to the Actions button to the right here, when you’re in the table of contents…

Jenny Beatty: It’ll also show actions for not being able to download.

Jenny Beatty: The handbook as well.

Jenny Beatty: And, again, that’s because I haven’t updated that policy.

Jenny Beatty: But if we go back… go and get everything saved. That red flag disappears.

Jenny Beatty: And then when I click on Actions, now I will be able to download the actual document.

Jenny Beatty: And same for when I go in, too. So if I go in here…

Jenny Beatty: and go to Actions, then everything’s highlighted in blue in this section, and I’ll be able to do all the actions that are available.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so, the last thing I want to show you here is we’re going to go to the top left corner of the platform.

Jenny Beatty: And we’re gonna go back to the My Dashboard.

Jenny Beatty: And it’s the last thing I do want to show you, because, this is going to be where, if you have any questions about any policies, if you have any,

Jenny Beatty: you know, like, best practice questions on how to create your handbook, things like that, you are able to contact our experts. Now, you can give them a call in the number provided in the platform, and they’re available, in the hours of… under the number.

Jenny Beatty: And on the left side, if you just want to reach out to them, you can definitely, do that just by opening a case.

Jenny Beatty: So you’d select whatever your question is, if it’s a question about, like, welfare retirement benefits and health, or if it’s more of a human resources, like, hey, I want to put a policy in about, like, uniforms, but, you know, I need some guidance.

Jenny Beatty: You can click on that here as well. Click on next, go through all the questions.

Jenny Beatty: And then put your question in here and submit.

Jenny Beatty: So, being able to ask the HR experts about anything to do with, like, creating the handbook, or how to handle it, or, they will… they can definitely help you with any of those questions as well.

 

Jenny Beatty: The Smart Employee Handbook

Jenny Beatty: Helps you be certain that as long as you continue to stay updated when the policy alerts notify you, that it will be up to date.

Jenny Beatty: So, that’s one thing, is, you know, you’re… you don’t have to worry about

Jenny Beatty: you know, like, 6 months down the road, go, oh no, I have to go through all these laws and try to figure out, you know, what needs to be updated in my handbook. You don’t have to do that with this. So, it’s a really great tool to have on hand. Even if you have your own handbook already, you will be able to utilize the handbook here.

Jenny Beatty: in the system.

Jenny Beatty: And then you can actually copy-paste those into your, already downloaded handbook if you have a different one that’s not from the platform.

Jenny Beatty: And it helps you just stay in compliance and, kind of connects the dots with everything.

Jenny Beatty: Alright, so the last thing I want to do is show you how to get more help.

Jenny Beatty: You can always ask us a question or connect with us in the Community tab under the Client Admin Success Hub in the platform.

Jenny Beatty: Otherwise, if you need assistance, don’t forget about, the Help Center. On the bottom right, there’s that Help Center, and there’s actually a section in there that you can walk through different areas of the handbook.

Jenny Beatty: I’m gonna show that really quick here.

Jenny Beatty: So, if you’re in the platform.

Jenny Beatty: And you click on this Get Help at the bottom right, and click on Help Center.

Jenny Beatty: There’s this full area.

Jenny Beatty: That’s gonna take you to the company policies and smart handbooks.

Jenny Beatty: And it breaks everything down on how to create it, custom policies, the editor, different videos, and guided tours, and different guides as well. So, that is a great resource to have.

Jenny Beatty: All right, so now that I’ve shown you that, you can reach out if you have any questions to our HR experts as well, don’t forget that as well. And remember, the point of the platform is to make your life easier, so use the tools as much as you need, let us know how we can help you.

Jenny Beatty: And once you sign off, you will receive a brief survey to share your feedback, so we’d love to hear your thoughts so we can continue to improve our sessions.

Jenny Beatty: And on that note, you’ve graduated from the Commonwealth Compliance Center Handbook Training, and I’m going to hand this back over to Susanna.

Susannah Forbes: Great. Thank you so much, Jenny. That was wonderful to see you walk through the tool.

Susannah Forbes: For folks that are interested, again, this tool is part of our Commonwealth Compliance Center, which is part of our HR Services, platform here at Commonwealth Payroll and HR, so if you are currently a client, and you’re interested in getting access to this, or you are not a client, and also gaining and interested in getting access to the Commonwealth Compliance Center, we’d love for you to reach out to us.

Susannah Forbes: I believe the last slide is gonna have my contact information on it.

Susannah Forbes: So please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, would love to chat with you. It’s a great tool, as you see, very easy to use. A really good business best practice is to have an employee handbook that is current and updated throughout the year. So thanks so much for joining us. Have a wonderful holiday next week. Take care.