When you have a responsibility in HR to complete a task every year, quarter, or bi-annually, it pays to create a strategy around it. Especially considering many are now multi-state employers which have only made keeping up with local and state policies more difficult.

Creating a system around updating your handbook and maintaining it throughout the year is the best way to keep your employer protected from liability lawsuits.

Our theme this month is how to work smarter and not harder, starting with how to identify expected tasks in compliance (check out our HRInsidr prep calendar we did at the beginning of the month) so you can work proactively and maintain the handbook as you go throughout the year.

On a productivity level, we are also in the age of information overload. The more we can organize the updates, the more we can efficiently work through this type of task because it can be tedious and time consuming, causing us to stop updating the handbook entirely.

Strategy Tips for Handbook Updates

• Some employers adopt the strictest policies in the country to cover all states, but can come with extra costs.
• Identify who it applies to, why should they care about it, their rights, and limitations.
• Do you have an existing policy? Use tone and approach to weave your workplace culture and policies throughout.

What are Handbooks?

Just to ground ourselves in the basics, the purpose of handbooks is to introduce ourselves to new hires, set expectations, and provide what is required by law, such as legal notices.

However, as we get caught up in the compliance, including every word we can to protect our employer, we forget about balancing the personal, remembering that policies affect employee’s lives.

Especially in 2025, policies are focused on discrimination, safety, and violence. Which is why it’s critical to train your managers on how to enforce these policies.

This comes down to educating your workforce with bite-size pieces of information that are informative and memorable.

• Some employers adopt the strictest policies in the country to cover all states, but can come with extra costs.
• Identify who it applies to, why should they care about it, their rights, and limitations.
• Do you have an existing policy? Use tone and approach to weave your workplace culture and policies throughout.

Just to ground ourselves in the basics, the purpose of handbooks is to introduce ourselves to new hires, set expectations, and provide what is required by law, such as legal notices.

However, as we get caught up in the compliance, including every word we can to protect our employer, we forget about balancing the personal, remembering that policies impact employee’s lives.

Especially in 2025, policies are focused on discrimination, safety, and violence. Which is why it’s critical to train your managers on how to enforce these policies. This comes down to discovering how to educate your workforce in bite-size pieces of information that are informative and memorable.

How to Update, Efficiently.

Considering that you update this document every year, starting with a checklist can help you weed through the policies to make the primary updates in an efficient time.

Consider these questions when it comes time to update:

• Which states are your employees in?
• What policies are new and what needs amended?
• Are there systems that need to be updated (payroll, notices, etc)
• How can you provide quick training for managers?
• When do the policies need to be implemented?
• What policies need consistent attention? (For example, paid sick leave)
• What needs to be deleted? (or, no longer mandated).
• Categorize and prioritize. This is the oldest tool in the book for tackling complex projects. If these updates drag on for you, causing you to skip this task or procrastinate, grouping tasks can help you breeze through it.

Download our 2025 January 1 State Law Guide and applying our color coded productivity tool to help make it efficient.

This guide also breaks up the information by region. It’s important to watch the trends in your employee’s region. If the policy is not currently in your intended state, it may be in the future, as state laws start trending.

2025 Policy Trends

• Support of unions
• PWFA and PUMP Act
• National Paid Family and Medical Leave
• Limiting non-competition agreements
• Increase minimum wage
• Social and political issues
• Union organizing
• Inequality
• Reproductive rights
• Where people work
• Return to office
• Remote/hybrid here to stay
• Accommodations
• Pregnancy
• Lactation
• Religious
• Domestic violence
• Technology
• Artificial intelligence

Download our list of the new state laws 2025 and marked them with action icons that need to be taken by HR to update these existing or new policies to show you this system in action to see if it can help you.

The information contained in this site is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.