If you are a small business owner and you prefer to write your restaurant employee handbook on your own, then you might want to look at this list of the top five most important mistakes you could ever make when writing your employee handbook.

1. Your restaurant employee handbook did not go through legal consultation

A fellow entrepreneur would understand if you skipped the attorney’s consultation fees. For some of us who are just beginning our business venture into the food service industry, a lawyer’s fees may be too steep.

Aside from that, if you have downloaded a free template of an employee handbook from a trusted website, then you might have felt confident the handbook template went through legal eyes to make sure it followed the State laws where your place of business is located.

2. Vague and unclear terms and conditions of employment in your employee handbook

Your restaurant employee handbook is your company’s Bible. The rules etched in paper might as well be etched in stone with the grave respect that employees lend towards company policies.

Looking at it from their point of view, the restaurant employee handbook is their armor that shields their rights as employees against employer abuse. Vis-a-vis, the same could be said of employer’s protection against future litigation. A vaguely stated company policy could cause confusion and misinterpretation on both sides.

If you state your policies in clear and concise terms, then you avoid confusion. Avoid using legalese, which muddles rather than clarifies the message to the ordinary reader. If possible, go through your policies point-by-point and step-by-step, which is similar to instructing a novice cook on a new recipe.

3. Lack of research into employment laws and labor issues

If you must create your own restaurant employee handbook on your own, then your document could greatly benefit from good background research into employment laws and labor issues currently affecting the food and beverage industry in your state, county or city.

Some local officials change food service laws as they see fit and expect local restaurant owners to follow blindly. Take the case of new laws that require restaurants to declare the number of calories that their menu items contain in each serving.

Because of the current trend towards healthy eating and slimming down, a restaurant, that serves high protein food or high carb meals, may lose much more customers aside from those who are already watching what they eat. We all know that healthy eating is not just about the calories, but the ratio of calories against the amount of physical activity you engage in.

In another area, you might want to look at current labor issues, such as at-will employment, that can affect your restaurant business. Although this labor practice is generally legal, it does not necessarily mean it is ethical. Weight your options if you want to include this type of hiring policy in your restaurant employee handbook or not.

4. Neglecting the cultural aspect of a restaurant employee handbook

In a multi-national world of business, always expect that you will be hiring people from minority groups, especially if you already have a diversity hiring policy in place.

Your restaurant employee handbook should address the needs of a bilingual labor force. For example, aside from writing your handbook in English, you should also translate it into Spanish and Chinese for the benefit of your employees who learned English as a second language or too late in life. They surely lack the fluency as well as cultural familiarity with idiomatic terms, legalese, and industry lingo.

5. Your restaurant employee handbook lack opportunities for employees to contribute, to protest or to suggest changes

Although most managers would be happy to listen to employees’ inputs or complaints, the lack of a non-partisan body to handle issues, concerns and conflicts within the company often lead to mishandling of cases of unfair labor practices. As much as possible, the company should do everything in its power to resolve the internal conflict before both parties ask help from the justice system for arbitrary resolution.

These five mistakes are the most important that a restaurant owner could make when putting together a restaurant employee handbook for the first time. You could consider hiring an experience technical writer as well as a legal consultant who can guide you through the legalities of employment.

Author Bio: Jerome Chiaro is a Restaurant Owner & Consultant out of Orange County, CA. Don’t train your staff alone! He can help you spend LESS TIME and become MORE EFFECTIVE… Claim your copy of his Free Restaurant Employee Handbook. Success doesn’t happen alone! Join a mastermind of restaurant owners and a wealth of resources, at his Free Restaurant Forms Blog.

Category: Business Management
Keywords: restaurant employee handbook