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Our firm defends employers daily on lawsuits for (alleged) discrimination, (purported) retaliation, (supposed) harassment, (asserted) unpaid wages or overtime, and just about every other workplace accusation imaginable. Management's inappropriate or illegal behavior is rarely the source of such court battles. Suits more often generate and grow from company failures: i) to have, instruct upon, and follow simple, written policy; and ii) to promptly and fairly document workplace upsets and their resolution. Pile on the clichés and maxims if you wish. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” isn’t bad. “If it isn’t written, it isn’t true” is better.
Whether in California’s highly regulated workplaces or elsewhere, thorough and current employee handbooks (also called employee or workplace policy manuals) are vital. An employer which does not structure workplace production, organization and procedure around sound, sensible, easy-to-understand written policies is prone to finding itself sooner or later in the midst of an expensive court controversy. If written policy does not exist or if it is not followed, if disruptive incidents and the fair addressing of them are not documented promptly and consistently, then that disgruntled, and perhaps disreputable, former employee and his/her lawyer may find it tempting to invent practices and versions of events to fit their hoped-for but undeserved “pay day.”
Very few jurors are employers. Almost all of them have been former employees at one time or another. At the end of a trial over alleged employee mistreatment, it will be these sworn-to-be-neutral citizens who will gauge whether the employer or worker is telling the more credible story. For a business, no written policy and no documentation in these circumstances are a recipe for a very expensive disaster.For the sound written foundations employers should have to reduce the risk of such a scenario, Bowles Law continues to update and refine comprehensive template employee handbooks California employers need. These handbooks exist for other states as well.
An employee handbook containing all legally required policies and procedures is an essential tool to protect employer and employee alike. Bowles Law has developed – and periodically revises to match the changing law – a template “soup-to-nuts” employee handbook to serve as the foundation of a finalized set of workplace policies customized for a client’s actual operations and legal obligations. The larger the number a company employs, the more state and federal employment laws apply. As of 2021, a particularly significant threshold for California employers is now at five or more persons on payroll, with a business then subject to a number of detailed “medical and family” leave obligations. There is a similar federal standard that applies to companies with 50 or more on payroll.
Whether a client utilizes our template or its own existing employee handbook as a starting point, ensuring that compilation of policies and protocols fits the business’s operations should be a collaborative process between management and specialist legal counsel.
We provide your template employee policy manual in electronic format to enable the necessary revisions to match specific company operations.
If you are an employer facing possible litigation, or have an employee issue on which you need immediate guidance, call us to set up a consultation, or submit your message.
NOTE: Use of this website does not make one a client of the Law Offices of Timothy Bowles (“Firm” or “Bowles Law”). Establishing an attorney-client relationship and the confidentiality that comes with it depends on the Firm’s prior confirmation that no factor, including any conflict of interest (for example, our representation of another party adverse to you), exists to prevent that establishment. If you have confidential information that you would like to provide a Bowles Law attorney, please communicate directly to one of our attorneys, in person, by telephone, email, fax or other written means. Do not use this website to offer or communicate confidential information about any legal matter.