A personnel policy manual insures that all employees are aware of the policies and expectations of your business. A manual enhances your professionalism, creates consistency in communications, and protects you from appearing arbitrary in your treatment of employees. Drafting this manual will provide you and your management team the opportunity to think through your policies in advance and create a pleasant, productive work environment.
To help you get started, here are links to some policy manual templates:
- The Personnel Policy Generator on the Ag Labor Dashboard. This online tool will guide you through the development of manual for your farm, which you can then download to your own computer. The tool provides sample language for many typical farm employee policies.
- Farm Commons' Sample Employee Handbook. This model manual outlines the many issues that should be addressed, providing sample language, and a checklist of considerations so that you can adapt provisions to your own operation. Note: You will need to set up an account on the Farm Commons website in order to download this free sample farm employee handbook.