Confused About HR Manual vs. Employee Handbook? Seeking Clarity and Examples from Peers

Dear Members,

Good evening. I have recently joined a startup company where there are about 25 employees. My manager has requested me to prepare an HR manual as well as an Employee handbook. Could anyone kindly explain the exact difference between an HR Manual and an Employee Handbook? Additionally, please share any related attachments if you have them available.

Your comments on my query would be greatly appreciated. Please send any attachments to my email address: ramu0103@gmail.com

Warm regards,
Ramu

Dear Ramu,

We are in the same boat. I am also new to this and currently working on preparing these documents. I hope someone replies to this email.

Thank you.

Dear Ramu/Vijay,

The employee handbook is a summarized version of the HR Manual. It contains only the HR policies related to the employees. It also includes a brief about the organization, code of conduct, brief hierarchy, and the contact numbers and extensions of key persons.

Regards,
Suyash

Employee Handbook completely clarifies the policies, practices, procedures, and general framework of work in the company. The handbook contains information about the company, vision, mission, and its strategies, etc. It also includes general information about attendance policy, lateness, medical benefits, etc.

On the other hand, the HR Manual is strictly designed for the HR department only.

Different companies have different frames of mind. But in my opinion, you can differentiate the above as I did.

Regards,
Syed Hasan

Hi Ramu and Vijay,

The Employee Handbook contains the mission, vision, values, and general policies and procedures of the company.

The HR Manual contains policies and procedures related to HR areas such as recruitment, training and development, performance management system (some organizations do include this in the handbook itself), succession planning, etc.

Geetha

Hi Geetha,

Attached is a sample handbook that was posted about a month back on CiteHR, a comprehensive and extensive one. There are many more on this site that provide us with a good guideline to formulate our own.

Thank you.