What Is the Difference Between HR Policy and Employee Handbook?

When you hire an employee, the HR person who does the onboarding hands over a big book of rules and rights the employee has. These days most companies will just have a mail sent out with the e-book, but you get the picture, an employee handbook is mandatorily handed over during the onboarding. Recruiters are also familiar with HR policy. This brings us to the question: Is there a difference between HR policy and employee handbook?

Short answer: You might think they are the same, but there is a difference. The HR will have internal guidelines on how to carry out recruitment, staffing, and compliance and payroll-related functions, who the stakeholders are, and how to track if everything is going fine. This is the HR policy document.

It is the watchdog, as it were, of the human resource planning in the organisation and ensures that everyone in the organization is happy and content, abiding by the rules, productivity is high, and costs are under control. Let us now look at the formal definitions of both HR policy and employee handbook and then summarize the differences between them.

What Is HR Policy?

HR policy is a document that outlines the role and responsibilities of HR in matters related to hiring, compliance and payroll, affecting not just employees but the management and the business. This document is created and maintained by the human resources team and approved by the stakeholders and members of the board of the company.

The HR policy document gives guidelines on diversity and inclusion, condemns any kind of abuse, helps guide managers in employee performance management, leave policies, and calculation of wages, code of conduct etc. the HR policy document eventually helps create a warm, productive and congenial atmosphere at work and gives the business a much-needed boost in ROI as well. It is prepared in accordance with legal requirements and best practices followed in the industry the business is engaged in.

The HR policy document is a living document of great importance to any organization and decision-makers will often refer to it, to help ensure that their actions fall within the boundaries of acceptance in the company. These boundaries are set by the HR policy document. But the document itself is amendable and can be changed in accordance with changes in laws, both set by the centre and state of the countries where the business operates and in line with industrial regulations.

What Is an Employee Handbook?

Now for the second definition, that of an employee handbook. We saw how HR policy is integral to a company functioning well. But at its heart is a company’s most important asset – people. And their productivity levels decide how well a company is doing and how it is growing year-on-year.

So, if an HR policy document is the body on which the company is based, an employee handbook is the heart and soul of the company. An employee handbook is handed over to employees at the time of onboarding in the company. It is generally the same document across teams and departments in the company.

Because they are provided at the time of onboarding and is the same for every employee in the company, they are user-friendly and laid out in a manner that favours reading and easy accessibility. They will not just have simple and readable text but probably images too which help get the message across.

Organizations may in the future even integrate AR into the employee handbooks they distribute, increasing the accessibility and relevance of the topics mentioned in the handbook. This will ensure that the employees are on the same page (pun intended) as the management with regard to what must be done and how in the company.

An employee handbook provides its employees insights into the company’s culture, its history and what the organisation expects from and promises its employees. It can be a valuable resource for not just employees, as the name suggests, but employers too.

By adding info on the mission, vision and values of the company and the mandatory benefits that employees enjoy too, an employee handbook is a promise from the HR to the employees and a reminder of their fundamental duties as well at the same time.

HR Policy vs. Employee Handbook

In summary HR policy document is an internal document that describes how the HR carries out its functions and provides visibility to stakeholder about the functions of HR and allows them to suggest changes if necessary.

The employee handbook, on the other hand, deals with how employees can work hand in glove with each other in the company, ensuring a productive and safe atmosphere.

The employee handbook helps to communicate organisational values and what employees can do to fit right in, while the HR policy document helps govern various aspects of employment itself, allowing the HR department to work smoothly.