If an extraterrestrial dropped in and asked you to describe your company, would you hand him your employee handbook? Probably not. Your company is about so much more than the benefits policies, cafeteria hours and mission statements that are the core of most employee handbooks. The company's got a certain personality, a flair. People dress down on Fridays and joke with each other in the hallways. No one's ever late for a meeting because it's considered disrespectful. Whatever.

So why isn't the company's personality reinforced in your handbook? It's the company's welcome sign for all employees, so shouldn't it say 'welcome' in the company's language, showing people how they should work as well as what they should and shouldn't do?

Putting it in perspective
Most people can agree that employee handbooks are the norm, if not a necessity for every company. Policies, benefits, procedures, etc. are housed in this bible of the legal and HR departments. Without handbooks, employees would have no clear idea of how things are done; they'd be resentful of unwritten company rules, and might rebel when a rule is imposed upon them; and both employees and the company would suffer from the legal battles that could ensue.

Employees and companies rely on handbooks to help make their relationship as valuable, productive and rewarding as possible. The solution is a simple equation: take the right information, make it easy to understand and enticing to read, and employees are more likely to put the ideas into action.

Why it's important
The problem with handbooks is that most are incredibly boring. (Honestly, have you read yours cover to cover?) By not including the company's personality, or corporate culture, you're stripping away the means that will help employees learn and understand the policies, which will help improve business (isn't that the point?) and avoid legal issues (another good point). Here's why:

• The company culture might be one of the top reasons an employee decides to join your organization. Why hold this back in the book that represents the company?
• If the culture is working well for your organization, shouldn't it be reinforced in your employee materials, too?
• How credible is a mismatched corporate handbook and culture? They can't both be right. Which is an employee to believe? For example, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that an employer's published anti-nepotism policy was unenforceable. The company fired a brother and sister based on this policy; but because the company failed to enforce the policy for several years -- even though several senior managers were aware of the brother-sister relationship -- the court ruled that the employer's actions spoke louder than its words. This ruling cost the company $600,000.
• If you want employees to read and act on policies, provide the information in a manner they can easily understand. (Legal mumbo-jumbo may be interesting to the lawyers, but most other people will avoid reading it or miss the points obscured by the herewiths, heretofores and heretos!)

Here are ways to incorporate your company culture and make your handbook more interesting, more useful and more effective:

Woo the legal department
You know the drill (and it's a necessity). The legal department will chew through your handbook twenty times before it goes to print. And why shouldn't it? Your company handbook is a legal document that can protect employees and the company from potential litigation, misunderstandings and poor performance from either side.

When you fold your corporate culture into your handbook, the wording will be very different than the legalese once considered the norm for handbooks. You'll have to build the lawyers' understanding of why certain language and layouts (which might seem flip) will actually help employees understand policies better, and therefore reduce the possibility of future legal action. Make sure you present policies and the culture clearly and accurately; but don't succumb to the pressure to use fifty words where five will do.

Tell a story
Commercials, history books, even jokes tell a story. People like stories. Through workshops and reading about the psychology of learning, we know people can follow information better and have a higher rate of retention when they can link it to a story, scenario or metaphor. Make your handbook a good read by taking the time to include more than just the facts, ma'am.

Show while you tell
Not everyone can plow through pages and pages of straight copy. Heck, even the dictionary has pictures. Bow to the visual sense (and increase readership and retention) by including graphics that reflect the company's tone. Based on IVC client work and our own handbook, we know graphic elements that match your company personality go a long way to ease the eyes and create congruence between what's on paper, and what's in action.

Be brief, and use your culture to your advantage
Employees equate handbooks to phone books -- they're better booster seats than reading material. Make sure you cover all necessary ground -- and be thorough -- but don't overdo it. Ask yourself, "Is this information pertinent to the handbook?" Look for ways to use your corporate culture to your advantage when developing the handbook. Is there another, more appropriate place employees regularly get this information?

Highlight action steps
Be certain to tell employees what they need to do to comply with your policies or core values. A statement like: 'we treat customers with respect' doesn't mean very much. What specifically do you mean by respect? What does it look and sound like? Does this include employees who don't have direct contact with customers? Who do you consider your customers? You can see how quickly a policy or value statement can become devoid of meaning, and not something employees take seriously.

The first step in this process, of course, is to get a firm understanding of your culture (which is another article in and of itself), and discover how that can translate to the handbook. With that agreed, you'll be able to communicate more effectively with employees, ensuring message consistency in printed materials and actions. What better way to kick off the employer-employee relationship?