How To Create a Restaurant Employee Handbook

Most people who have gotten an employee handbook throw it in a drawer and forget about it. So, what’s the point of even drafting one? That’s a thought many restaurant owners and managers have had in the past, and most went on to regret it.

Below, we’re going to talk about how to create a comprehensive restaurant employee handbook, why doing so is an HR best practice, and what role it can serve in making your restaurant run smoother. We’ll also look at how incorporating online training into your handbook keep staff up to date on important policies and procedures.

What Is a Restaurant Employee Handbook and Why Is It Important?

Employee handbooks are documents that clearly specify the workplace rules, policies, and procedures that an employee is expected to follow.

At a restaurant, employee handbooks are often neglected, if they exist at all. This can lead to legal trouble and confusion over restaurant policies.

There are many important reasons why drafting and updating your employee handbook is among the best practices for restaurant HR policies. These include:

• Legal Compliance: Some policies aren’t a matter of personal preference for your organization – various anti-discrimination policies require employers to communicate certain concepts and guidelines to their employees. A restaurant handbook can play a role in this.
• Legal Protection: Beyond what’s required for regulatory compliance, spelling out all your restaurant workplace rules provides some legal coverage in the event that you’re sued. You’ll have proof that policies were communicated in the event that you have to fire someone for violating them.
• Setting Expectations: On the flip side, having all the restaurant policies spelled out in writing can give your employees a clear sense of your boundaries and expectations so they know what to do – and what not to do.
• Consistent Enforcement: If you don’t share HR policies throughout your organization in writing, you’re leaving important decisions in the hands of whoever’s in charge at any given time. Restaurant employee handbooks ensure that there is a reference that managers and employees alike can consult, leading to more consistent enforcement of your rules.
• Easy Reference: A comprehensive handbook means that when employees have questions, they don’t have to ask a manager – they can simply look up the answer. This saves everyone a little time and ensures that employees can get answers to important questions whenever necessary. This can be especially important for emergency procedures.

What To Include In A Restaurant Employee Handbook

When choosing what to include in a restaurant employee handbook, some restaurant policies are crucial to cover, while other topics are more optional.

Essential policies for a restaurant employee handbook might include the following:

• Employee Code of Conduct: Policies like dress code, grooming requirements, punctuality, cell phone usage, substance use policies, and other acceptable or unacceptable behavior.
• Routine Systems and Procedures: Scheduling policies, time-off procedures, opening and closing procedures, technological tools, and other daily routines.
• Compensation and Benefits: Covering payment methods, overtime and tipping policies, employee discounts, meal allowances, break policies, holiday policies, time off allowances, and any other employee benefits.
• Food Safety Policies: Including regulatory hygiene standards, food handling procedures, mandatory reporting for certain diagnoses or symptoms, and food allergen policies.
• Alcohol Service Policies: If applicable, including ID checking requirements, overserving procedures, and other requirements related to liquor law.
• Workplace Safety Information: Including OSHA rights and responsibilities, emergency exits, fire safety, hazardous materials handling, and other safety protocols.
• Anti-Harassment Policies: Covering the discrimination, harassment, and bullying behavior that constitutes a punishable or fireable offense, confidentiality policies, and reporting/response procedures.
• Other Employment Policies: Anything that may have legal implications like an equal employment opportunity statement, at-will employment, accommodations for persons with disabilities, and more.

Some items are optional, helpful, or nice to have, including:

• A message from the owner can be a nice way to personalize the handbook.
• Mission statement and core values, which can help shape a restaurant’s culture.
• Disciplinary and complaint resolution procedures, including disciplinary options, warning policies, complaint and response procedures, or employee resignation and termination procedures.
• Emergency procedures, including natural disasters, medical emergencies, and workplace violence procedures.
• Career development options, including available training, requirements and procedures for internal promotion, and more.
• Workplace dating policies, like restricting relationships between employees and their supervisors.

Employee Handbook Guidelines

When crafting a restaurant employee handbook, here are some tips and best practices to keep in mind.

Include a Disclaimer

While you want the legal coverage that spelling out restaurant workplace rules can offer, you don’t want the handbook itself to be interpreted as legally binding. It can quickly become a straitjacket.

While employee handbooks are generally not considered legally binding contracts unless explicitly stated to be within, you can make this clear to everyone by including a disclaimer in the introductory section stating that the handbook isn’t intended to be a contract and that you reserve the right to modify policies.

Ensure Legal Compliance

When crafting the sections of an employee handbook directly tied to legal or regulatory compliance, you need to make sure that the language of your handbook doesn’t violate those laws or regulations in any way. This includes:

• Compensation and child labor policies, which must comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA)
• Anti-discrimination or harassment policies and complaint procedures, which must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and state or local law
• Food handling and alcohol serving policies, which must comply with state and local regulations
• Workplace safety rights and responsibilities, which must comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or state OSH agencies.

This is not a comprehensive list, and the applicable laws and regulations vary from state to state and even city to city. It can be helpful to get formal legal advice to ensure that your document is entirely compliant.

Know What’s Enforceable

Even with the disclaimer described above, specific promises contained in a handbook – including those regarding compensation, benefits, and other terms of employment – may be considered enforceable in a court of law.

Sometimes this comes down to a matter of wording. This is another reason to have a restaurant employee handbook reviewed by a lawyer.

Make It Easy to Understand

While it’s important to use legally savvy wording in spelling out your policies and requirements, you don’t want to stuff it full of nothing but dry legalese. You need your restaurant workplace rules to be understood by everyone involved.

As a result, using clear language accessible to laypeople is essential. Some regulations even make plain language a mandatory part of their communication policy, like OSHA.

Secondly, language barriers are a very real concern in the restaurant industry, so you might want to consider getting your restaurant employee handbook translated into Spanish or any other language commonly spoken by your employees. If you take this step, just be careful to get a professional translation – relying on free translation tools or even AI can put you back in legal jeopardy.

Back Up Your Handbook With Compliance Training

In many cases, a handbook won’t, by itself, meet the compliance requirements of specific laws or regulations – they typically require professional, comprehensive training that uses quizzes and tests to confirm employees’ comprehension of the law. In many cases, the training has to come from an approved source.

One of the simplest and most cost-effective solutions for compliance training is to buy a ready-made course designed by experts. We offer online, self-paced courses that are approved for use by many regulatory agencies on topics ranging from alcohol service and food safety to OSHA and general HR topics.

You can make assigning, tracking, and documentation of these courses even easier by making use of our business solutions. You’ll get bulk discounts on a huge catalog of training topics along with access to a free delivery platform and dedicated account support.

Contact us today to get started!