Employee Handbook Template
An employee handbook is an internal document shared with new hires on their first day. The handbook details your company’s mission statement, vision, culture, code of conduct, employee benefits and other company policies and procedures related to employment. Employee handbooks are essential in guiding new employees through the inner processes of your workplace and setting them up for success within your company.
- Create a visually-impactful employee handbook to welcome new employees.
- Set clear expectations for all new employees.
- Maintain a positive workplace culture where issues can be handled fairly and consistently.
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How to create an employee handbook with Xtensio
- Click and start editing, no account or credit card required.
Follow along with the instructional template details. Add charts, graphs, images, and videos to customize the handbook template and make it your own. Drag & drop. Resize. Customize the employee handbook format however you need. It’s the easiest editor ever.
- Customize everything in the team employee handbook template to match your brand.
Define your style guide. Add your (or your client’s) brand fonts and colors. You can even pull colors directly from a website to easily brand your employee handbook and more.
- Work on ecosystem mapWork on your handbook together on the cloud.
Add colleagues and stakeholders to collaborate on the handbook template. Changes automatically save and sync across all devices, in real-time.
- Share a link. Present a slideshow. Embed. Download a PDF/PNG.
The employee handbook template seamlessly adapts to your workflow. No more jumping from tool-to-tool to design different types of deliverables.
- Reuse and repurpose.
Save your own custom company employee handbook template. Or copy and merge sections into other documents.
Employee handbook example templates
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Xtensio is much more than your standard employee handbook builder.
What is an employee handbook?
Also known as a “staff handbook”, “employee manual”, “company policy manual”, or the “culture code”, an employee handbook is a document created by employers (usually the human resources team) to communicate employment and job-related information that all employees need to know.
Employee handbooks are generally shared with new hires after they accept an offer letter, but they are also beneficial to all levels of the organization because they paint a clear understanding of what supervisors expect of employees and ensure that policies, procedures and processes are enforced fairly and consistently.
What information should an employee handbook include?
The human resource team use handbooks to outline company rules, values and policies. An effective employee handbook sets the tone of the employment relationship and encourages compliance.
The handbook will give new hires an overview of your company vision, mission and culture, and shows them what you value in and expect from your employees. Employee handbooks typically include three categories of content:
- General information including items such as your company’s mission statement, core values, employment policies, employment opportunities, non-discrimination policy and more.
- Cultural information including items such as vacation policies, company perks, holiday schedules, dress code, sick leave, jury duty etc.
- Case-specific information including items such as company policies, disciplinary and grievance procedures, etc.
How do you write an employee handbook?
Before you start creating your employee handbook, define what information is necessary to tell your employees. You can outline a table of contents that outlines sections in the handbook, which could include:
- A welcome message.
- Code of Conduct.
- Workplace procedures and policies.
- Office information, contacts and work hours.
- Compensation.
- Perks & Benefits.
- Legal aspects.
- Employee termination.
Once you have defined the information you need to include in your handbook, you can use Xtensio’s free employee handbook template to easily design your own company handbook. Keep these things in mind when creating your company handbook.
- Present information visually when possible.
- Use consistent branding throughout the handbook (set up your team style guide to make this easy).
- Use lists, bullets, columns and interactive modules to clearly and concisely communicate important information.
The employee handbook is part of these toolboxes:
Check out related templates, examples and resources.
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Yes. All Xtensio plans include 128 bit SSL encryption and backups to ensure your data is secure. You can make shared folio links private on premium plans. Here’s more on the range of sharing options on Xtensio, from completely private to public.
Yes. You can try out Xtensio’s simple editor and any template, including the employee handbook template without creating an account. To save your work, collaborate with your team and access other premium features and resources, you can upgrade to premium. Plans start at $8 per month.
By upgrading to our premium plans, you’ll have a private, branded workspace with your own URL where you, your team members and guests can create and collaborate on multiple presentations and documents.
You’ll be able to lock branding across your deliverables with the team style guide, streamline the creation process with custom templates, unlock exports, add password protection and customize individual shared links, and view folio stats to stay updated on all of your projects. Here’s more about our premium plans.
A great employee handbook should NOT include just cause, permanent position, due process or probationary period. These terms set abstract and inaccurate expectations.
Create a unique, personalized company handbook for your employees. This will guide them through the inner processes of the workplace and welcome them into their new environment. You can use the template to easily hit all the important parts and fill in your own company name, values and policies.
Yes! We have a couple of employee handbook examples and templates above that you can use as a starting point to help think about your own need for your product or organization. Click on one of the sample employee handbooks. Make sure you read the instructional template copy to understand what information needs to be added to each section of the template.
Yes! You can invite as many people as you’d like to collaborate on your employee handbook and other business documents, ensuring your whole team is aligned. Xtensio helps improve the way your team works. Here’s more on real-time collaboration.
When you’re ready to share your employee handbook, choose between presenting it as a full-screen digital slideshow, sending it as a responsive web link or exporting your handbook as a PDF or PNG. All of your share options are located at the top right of your edit screen. Learn more about the different ways to share your folios in this tutorial video.
We do! There are a number of different templates, examples and resources to to help you run your business smoothly. Check out our Operations toolbox and our Strategy toolbox to find more tools and resources.
