Instead of making changes directly to your employee handbook, we recommend incorporating COVID-related policy updates into a separate handbook addendum or just a packet of policies and documents that each employee will receive. This is likely to be administratively easier to maintain and should also cut down on how much time employees spend looking for COVID-related policies when they need them. Keeping these policies separate also underscores that they are temporary and will be removed at the appropriate time.
Policies in a COVID addendum or policy kit may include a work-from-home policy, face-covering policy, workplace safety rules, vaccination policy, workplace sanitation procedures, and internal policy changes related to the pandemic (e.g., travel, paid time off, call-in procedure).
If you want to have a general policy related to illness that details when to stay home, whom to notify of an illness, etc., you could include that directly in the employee handbook. Just make sure that the policies there align with whatever you have included in your COVID addendum if you have one.
Do you need help with updating your handbooks? Contact our team today!
