Employee Handbook vs. HR Manual: What's the Real Difference and Who Should See It?

Dear All,

Can anyone suggest to me what the basic difference is between an Employee Handbook and an HR Manual? Can we circulate the copy of the HR Manual to employees, or should it be kept with HR only? Perhaps both documents contain the same information. Please suggest.

Hello friend,

An "Employee Manual" or an "Employee Handbook" are the same. This is a collection of guidelines, expectations, policies, and procedures relevant to its employees. The Employee handbook/Manual is given to employees on one of the first days of his/her job in order to acquaint them with their new company and its policies.

A Human Resources Development (HRD) Manual, however, may contain many other processes - for example, the recruitment process, compensation design process, employee survey process, etc. Such processes may not be very relevant to each employee and will not, therefore, be part of the Employee Handbook or Employee Manual but will certainly be part of the HRD Manual. In other words, our ISO manual for HR can be termed as the HRD Manual.

Hope this clarifies.

Regards,
Nishikant