How to Create An Employee Handbook for Your Company (Free Sample Provided)

When designing an effective and powerful employee experience for your organisation, a oft-overlooked but crucial element is the use of an employee handbook. This document plays an important part in ensuring that employers, employees, and the HR department are completely aligned on the company's employment policies and guidelines, helping to provide guidance and set expectations for employees.

While not legally mandatory in Malaysia, you should certainly have an employee handbook for your organisation no act as a reference for employees whenever they have any questions about company policies and guidelines. Ultimately, this saves time for both employers and employees (along with HR managers, too). But if you're an employer or HR manager in a smaller or newer organisation, you might wonder: where do you even begin? 

We understand — an employee handbook can, and should be a very comprehensive document, one that can be challenging to create from scratch. With that in mind, we've compiled some tips to help you get started; if you still need help, scroll onto the bottom for a link to a free sample handbook template! 

1. Cover employee leave entitlements

One of the most commonly-asked questions that employees have is, of course, leave entitlements. This includes various allowances, including annual leave, compassionate leave, hospitalisation & medical leave, and a whole range of entitlements.

Be sure to be as comprehensive as you can, with the help of the following articles we've provided below: 

• Leave Types 101: What Types of Paid Leave Are Malaysian Employees Entitled To?‍
• Unused Annual Leave in Malaysia: What Are Employees Legally Entitled To?‍
• What Does Sabbatical Leave Mean in Malaysia?
  
• Maternity & Paternity Leave in Malaysia: What the Law Says in 2023‍
• Maternity Leave 101: Everything Malaysians Need to Know

Include the necessary disclaimers, and provide for consequences and changes that might occur in the future.

2. Don't forget the basics

It's easy to overlook the basics, but remember that an employee handbook should be seen as a single source of truth and reference for employees. As such, don't forget to include the basic (but important) information such as working hours, overtime pay if applicable, information on the probation period, what happens if termination of employment happens, and so on. If relevant, include information on dress code, expected conduct in the workplace, and even salary payout dates.

Here are some useful resources to cover some core HR matters: 

• Can You Skip Your Notice Period When Resigning in Malaysia?‍
• What Benefits do Malaysian Employees Expect Most in 2022?
  
• 5 Things to Know When Preparing for Tax Season in Malaysia
• What are Flexi Benefits & Should My Company Offer Them?
• Offboarding Employees 101: 5 Vital Questions to Ask During Exit Interviews in Malaysia‍

Plus, you always head to altHR's Resource centre for the end to end of HR guides and help articles here.

3. Include in a definitions page

It's also important that you include a page covering definitions. This is usually located at the beginning or the end of the handbook, and will serve as a useful reference to cover various terminologies throughout the document. For example, define what "Company" or "Employee" covers and so on.

While this may seem rather tedious, it's good practice to dot your i's and cross your t's with this — particularly from a legal point of view.

Be sure to include the following definitions: 

• Company
• Employee
• Year
• Calendar year
• Day
• Month
• Dependants
• Family

If you're still unclear, scroll down to the next section, because...