Many property management companies create operations and compliance handbooks and policies to assist staff in understanding the company’s operational procedures. Once completed, the handbooks and policies are rarely (if ever) reviewed and updated. A periodic audit of a company’s employment practices is vital to reducing the risk of liability for employment-related claims and a good place to begin such a review is with the company’s existing written policies and handbooks.
A good first step in this process is a review of the content of company handbooks. Regardless of the type of handbooks involved, a review should examine the content of all existing manuals and ensure that all required policies are included. The review should verify that the policies contain the necessary provisions to comply with whatever law may apply and work toward reducing the potential risk of liability for the company due to miscommunication.
During this review of existing handbooks, existing policies should be compared to legally required policies. Legal developments for employers with respect to federal law generally make it essential to include a written, formal policy dealing with workplace harassment, especially sexual harassment. (Relating to this, I will be conducting training in Sexual Harassment & Diversity in the Workplace in New York in May 2015. Please contact me if you would be interested in attending either of these sessions). These policies should include a definition of the relevant harassment as well as an illustrative list of harassing, offensive, and unacceptable behavior. An acceptable harassment policy should also have an effective complaint procedure that allows the complaining employee to bypass the chain of command if necessary when reporting violations of the policy. A review of the policies should identify how the company makes its harassment policy known to employees and verify that it consistently follows through on these procedures. In other words, how is the policy communicated and how often? Another important item for review is the company’s training of employees – especially managers – about workplace harassment.
Other areas to review in company handbooks include at-will language, dispute resolution methods, and Internet usage. In addition to checking the content of company policies to ensure compliance with relevant statutes and verifying that the handbook does not contain provisions that create unexpected legal obligations, the review can help identify areas where an employer should have certain policies even if such policies are not required.
Companies should have procedures in place to update handbooks and policies on an ongoing basis, and comprehensive reviews of such policies should be undertaken on a regular schedule – e.g., every three to five years.