Bringing a new employee on board is always exciting – whether it’s the first time or the 100th time. You’ve vetted your candidate and are confident that they will be an invaluable asset to your team. Shaking their hands and showing them to their desks is not the end of the onboarding. And if it is, things probably won’t work out between you. It’s important that your new employees are properly onboarded, trained, and equipped with an employee handbook or personnel manual to ensure they know what the rules and guidelines are for working at your firm.
What to Put In Your Manual
Your personnel manual should have everything an employee ever needs to know about working at your tax firm. That sounds like an overwhelming amount of information, right? Personnel Manuals require a lot of information but here are some of the basics.
Information about your company
Introduce the company, the executive team, your mission, vision, and values. Welcome the new hire and tell them what they can expect.
Employment Practices
It’s important (and required by law) to educate employees about their rights as workers. If you are a “Right to Work” state, you should include information about “Employment at Will” and what that means. The required “Equal Opportunity” information should also be included, as well as information about any aptitude tests, ability tests, random drug testing, or credit investigations you conduct.
Harassment should be addressed in your personnel manual, including how it’s defined, how it should be reported, and what the repercussions are for offenders. With that, standards of conduct should be set along with your policies on disciplinary action.
Finally, it is crucial to have non-compete, no solicitation, and confidentiality policies that your employee is required to sign.
Compensation and Performance
Your wage and salary policies should be included in your personnel manual. How is pay determined? When do they get paid? What gets deducted from their paychecks is a mandatory item you need to include. Your overtime, sick time, and policies on absenteeism and lateness should be spelled out and easy to understand. Other things to think about include their work schedule, how lunch time is handled, and any flextime policies you have.
Benefits
Here’s where you get to tout all of the benefits of working at your firm. Do you offer paid vacations, holiday time, paid leaves of absence, paid memberships, or healthcare? Be sure to include all of the great benefits you offer.
General Rules and Practices
Think about all of the things you’d want to know about working in an office and write those down. For example, the technology policies regarding security, ownership, and use; internet and telephone use and copy machine policies. You should include your dress code, office housekeeping, and conflict resolution policies. Your code of conduct should be included as well as alcohol and drug policies. Any and every policy you have (which should be a long list) should be included.
Sounds like a lot, right? Tax office personnel handbooks are not light reading. They are meant to cover everything a new employee needs to know. They are also a reference guide for when they have questions. Feeling overwhelmed? Want to make sure you don’t miss anything? The Income Tax School has a Tax Business Personnel Manual that covers everything you need to bring on new employees successfully.
Key features include:
- Tax Preparer employment agreements including essential non compete no solicitation and confidentiality provisions.
- Recruiting and hiring info.
- A complete personnel manual in digital form that can be customized.
Check out the Tax Business Personnel Table of Contents to see all that we include in this helpful guide.