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I have never heard an attorney with that point of view.
For us, we have found that without a handbook, it opens us up to more issues than not having one. When we did not have a handbook, we always had issues with trying to get relief from unemployment when we released an employee. We were told more than once that since we did not have written policy that the employee had no formal policy to follow, and thus could not be held responsible for his actions (too many sick days, attitude, competence, etc.).
I agree that if you have formal company policy and do not follow it to a T, you could open yourself up to even more legal issues. You are in essence creating a contract between the company and the employee, and if either do not follow the set policies that person(s) would be in breach of the contract. We never used a formal handbook until we had about 10 employees, but now we refer to it often when making employee related decisions. It is very important to have your disciplinary system spelled out and followed no matter who the employee is. If you do not have policy in place for disciplinary actions, you will always loose Unemployment battles in the courtroom. Our company handbook is probably close to 100 pages and we are adding to it all the time. Things change and we ALWAYS have our employees sign all the amendment's to the contract, just as we would have a customer sign change orders.
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Matt
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