Your employee handbook isn’t an afterthought — it’s a tool that should be designed and used to solve your day-to-day problems
I’m still so surprised by how many businesses don’t have employee handbooks. Do y’all not realize how many problems could get solved in (or, better yet, not even happen in the first place) if you had an employee handbook that specifically set expectations about every aspect of your business the moment a new hire started?
It’s easy to deprioritize projects like this in favor of client work, but you’re really doing your clients a disservice if you’re distracted by the small day-to-day things that are distracting your team members. If you really want to serve your clients at the highest level, then it really does start with having your team perform at their highest level. They need absolute clarity in order to do that. The employee handbook is one way of ensuring that this can happen.
First thing: An equal opportunity statement
Now, this is not just a compliance thing. At Cardone Ventures, we want to be an employer of choice. Our goal is to create a real team, and to create a culture that people can thrive in. We need to provide them with the ability to work in a place that is goal-oriented and that respects them. We need to build a culture and an operational structure that allows for those things to be possible — and we need to live it, not just say it.
Second thing: A letter from your CEO
This is an opportunity to set the company tone. To speak to the mission of your company. And to make your new hires feel welcomed by the person who is in charge of everything. At Cardone Ventures, our letter is structured like this to be as inclusive as possible, so that everyone understands that our mission as a company isn’t about one person, but that it’s about everyone working together to achieve our individual and collective personal, professional, and financial goals. Total clarity, right off the bat.
Third thing: Include your Mission, Vision, and Values
These elements are incredibly important, and I believe they are some of the reasons why Cardone Ventures has been so successful. A lot of companies have mission statements that they create and never really revisit. Many might think that your mission, vision, and values are the same thing. Even more probably don’t think about them at all. But, to us, our mission (the reason that our business exists), our vision (where we see ourselves going in the next five to ten years), and our values (the business morals that drive each decision we make for the business) are the lifeblood of what we do.
We talk about these things all the time. We use them to guide our decisions. They’re our north star, so we place them on a pedestal, and we certainly include them in our employee handbook, because it’s our expectation that our teams know them, understand them, and use them. There’s no exceptions.
Fourth thing: Establish the ground rules
When I’m talking about ground rules, I’m talking about basic conduct in the workplace. Like, at Cardone Ventures, everyone answers the phone. Everyone. If it rings twice, you sure as hell better be picking up that phone and answering it so we can serve whomever is on the other end of that line. Doesn’t matter what title you have. Answer the phone.
We want to keep things tight in our business. We want to keep things tidy, and as soon as people start saying things like, “That’s not my job,” well, that’s when things start to get sloppy and the business will start to fail. None of us is too big to create a great customer service experience, so establishing these ground rules in your employee handbook will make that abundantly clear.
Fifth thing: Add an employee handbook information quiz!
The Cardone Ventures employee handbook features a 25 question quiz that gets updated every time we have significant policy change. We use this tool because we didn’t create this handbook just for the sake of it.
Like I said, this isn’t just a compliance thing for us. We really want to create a culture that people can grow and thrive in, so we want our employees to actually read, understand, and retain the information that’s inside of it! The quiz is just one small way of making it interactive and fun.
There are so many other things you can incorporate into your employee handbook to build a team that is focused, supported, and completely aligned with your business. If you want to learn more, then you need to attend our People’s Essentials workshop.
Visit CardoneVentures.com/Events today to register!