For businesses that employ staff, staff handbooks and HR policies are an important part of setting expectations and ensuring clarity within the workplace. They provide the detailed rules and regulations for how you expect staff to behave in the business and what they can expect from you in terms of guidance on how to do their jobs. These things frequently require much more detail than can be included in an employment contract.

Richard Hiron, Employment Law Consultant Solicitor, shares what important factors go into staff handbooks, ensuring you are your business remains compliant whilst supporting a positive workplace culture.

What Policies Should Be Included in a Compliant Staff Handbook?

The policies included in a staff handbook will depend on the number of staff in the business. All businesses need to ensure that they have appropriate policies in relation to grievance and disciplinary procedures, as well as pension arrangements (although pensions are usually covered in an employment contract instead).

Where a business has five or more employees, they need a health and safety policy. For businesses with 50 or more employees and/or if a regulator requires it, they need to have a whistleblowing policy. Regulators or legal circumstances might also require businesses to have policies on matters such as data protection, IT and social media.

For a growing team, it is also important to have policies focused on family-related matters (for example, maternity leave, paternity leave, parental leave, shared parental leave, and bereavement leave), as well as policies for emergencies (for example, time off for dependants and carers’ leave).

How Often Should HR Policies Be Updated?

Every two to five years.

This is because employment law is constantly evolving (it does this regardless of big changes like the Employment Rights Act 2025 due to smaller Acts of Parliament and regulations that are brought into force from time to time, and case law decided through the courts).

For instance, some HR policies that we see still refer to COVID-19 and what to do in those circumstances in line with the rules that applied at the time, but which no longer apply, which is confusing for employees and workers.

Can a Staff Handbook Form Part of an Employee’s Contract?

Yes. This might happen either because the employer decides to make all or part of a staff handbook a contractual right, or because employees (usually through their trade unions or through employees elected to represent them) have negotiated for certain rights in the staff handbook to become contractual or not.

It is important to state in a handbook and/or in the individual policies whether they form part of an employee’s employment contract or not.

What is the Difference Between Contractual & Non-Contractual Policies?

A contractual policy applies as if it actually is part of an employee’s employment contract, which means that it can only be changed in limited ways, mainly by negotiating with the employee or people elected to represent them (such as another employee or a trade union, if enough other employees are also affected).

A non-contractual policy can be changed at the employer’s discretion, whilst an employer might consult with employees whilst doing that, or have obtained feedback from employees on how the policy might work better in the future, the change is not treated as being part of an employee’s employment contract.

It is important to state in a handbook and/or in the individual policies whether they form part of an employee’s employment contract or not.

How Should Small Businesses Handle Disciplinary & Grievance Procedures?

This should be done with reference to their disciplinary and grievance policies and as recommended by the Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, but also in a way that respects their own resources (such as the personnel available to them and their financial resources).

For instance, a small business simply might not have enough people who are unaffected by a complaint to handle a grievance or a disciplinary matter completely independently. Whilst they should consider whether it is feasible to source outside assistance to ensure that independence, they might have to rely on a person in the business who is the least affected by a complaint to make a decision.

In other words, it is a careful balancing act, but if the business can show that it logically had no other choice, an employment tribunal is likely to understand why that decision had to be made.

What Are the Risks of Not Following Your Own HR Policies?

In the short-term, you risk confusing and alienating your staff. In the worst cases, you leave yourself open to employment tribunal claims, particularly over conflicting approaches or even breaches of your disciplinary and grievance policies, especially where those breaches are Acas-accepted standards.

Employment tribunals can take these into account not only in unfair dismissal claims, but in others as well, such as claims of discrimination, breach of contract, and unlawfully taking deductions from your employees’ wages. For this, the employment tribunal can add up to 25% of compensation on top of what it awards to your employee if they have a successful claim.

How Can a Staff Handbook Support a Positive Workplace Culture?

Staff handbooks are often mistaken for simply being more formal. Alongside the rules and requirements, they are an opportunity to underline why your business exists, who it helps, how it helps them, and to set out your vision for the business so that your staff can share that vision and work towards it.

Yes, there are rules, but your staff handbook can also bring your staff onto the same page with you so that everyone understands why your business is doing what it does.

Should Remote or Hybrid Working Policies be Included?

These are usually policies that are added to a staff handbook voluntarily by a business. However, if remote and/or hybrid working is regular across the business or even the way that the business runs (such as if staff regularly or solely work from home), then it is sensible from a practical, legal and insurance perspective to have policies addressing that in your staff handbook.

How Can HR Professionals Use a Staff Handbook to Protect Their Clients?

Staff handbooks are essentially the ‘go-to’ for how the business continues to function through its staff. They can include the mission statement and functionalities of the business, but the rules are also crucial, because sometimes things can go wrong.

Forward-thinking and considering what might happen over the course of the existence of the business can help to future-proof the business through future-proofing the policies. In other words, if a staff handbook is being implemented purely as a form-filling exercise, something is going wrong, because the more personal the handbook is to the business, both practically and legally, the easier it will be to operate alongside those unfortunate things that can sometimes go wrong.

If you need legal support regarding your staff handbooks and other employment law advice. You can get in touch with Consultant Solicitor Richard Hiron, using the email   r.hiron@woodstocklegalservices.co.ukor complete the form below.