How to review an employee handbook

Many organisations review their whole handbook once a year, and individual policies when something changes. There's no single legal timetable for reviewing a handbook, but some situations should always prompt a review:

• A change in employment law that affects one of your policies
• A change in how you work, such as hybrid working, new sites or new services
• A change of key contacts, such as who handles grievances, sickness reporting or HR queries
• A concern, grievance or tribunal claim that exposed a gap
• A policy that employees or managers find unclear

List every policy, with its owner, when it was last reviewed and where the current version is kept. If you have several versions in different places, decide which one is current before you change anything.

Check for gaps too. A handbook commonly covers areas such as conduct, harassment, grievance, disciplinary, absence and sickness, holidays, flexible working, family leave, data protection, health and safety, and whistleblowing.

Many handbook errors are simple ones: an old contact name, the wrong holiday year, an out-of-date phone number or a job title that no longer exists. Check these across every policy, because the same detail often appears in several places.

For each policy, ask whether anything relevant has changed since it was last reviewed: statutory rates, eligibility rules, notice periods, new rights or new duties. Use official sources, such as GOV.UK, legislation.gov.uk and Acas, and note when a change takes effect.

Separate what the law requires from what's your own choice. Your policy can be more generous than the legal minimum, but it shouldn't offer less, and it should be clear which is which.

A policy that describes a process nobody follows is a risk in itself. Ask the managers who use each policy whether it reflects reality: who approves holiday, how sickness is reported, how flexible working requests are handled.

Use plain English, short sections and clear headings. Say who to contact and what to do. If employees can't find the answer to a simple question, they'll ask someone, or guess.

Have changes approved by someone with authority before they're published. Then tell employees what has changed and why. Not every change needs everyone to read the whole policy again, but important changes should be acknowledged, and you should keep a record of who has seen which version.

• Every policy is listed with an owner and a last-reviewed date
• There is one current version of each policy
• Any missing policies have been identified
• Contact names, job titles and phone numbers are up to date
• Company details, such as the holiday year and reporting times, are consistent across policies
• Each policy has been checked against relevant changes in employment law
• Legal minimums and your own more generous terms are clearly distinguished
• Managers have confirmed each policy matches how things actually work
• Wording is clear, with headings and who to contact
• Changes have been approved before publishing
• Employees have been told what changed
• Important changes have been acknowledged, with a record kept
• A date has been set for the next review

PolicyPilot keeps every policy in one Policy Bank with its versions and approvals, lets you enter company details once in the Handbook Register, checks your policies against relevant legislative developments at least every 90 days and tracks who has read and acknowledged each version. You decide what changes and when it's published.