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This is part of a series of articles by Wright Lindsey Jennings’ labor and employment team examining key trends for employers and the workplace in 2025, authored by attorneys Regina Young and Troy Price. The series was featured in Arkansas Business.
A company’s employee handbook helps establish workplace culture and gives employees a guide on properly navigating discipline, performance, and time off. An employee handbook also instructs management on how to handle employee issues in a consistent and unbiased manner.
The start of a new year is the perfect time to review your employee handbook to make sure that it covers the essentials and to address any changes in employment laws or new business needs.
The essential topics that most, if not all, employee handbooks should cover include:
- Every handbook issued by an Arkansas employer should state that the policies in the document do not change the state’s at-will employment doctrine. In other words, employment may be terminated or terms of employment may be altered for any reason except those prohibited by law.
- The underlying theme of a timekeeping, pay, and overtime policy should be that hourly employees will be paid for all time worked with no exceptions. The policy should make clear that employees are prohibited from performing work without recording their time (i.e., working off the clock), that timekeeping and paycheck errors must be promptly addressed, and that unauthorized overtime work will be paid but may result in discipline. It should also be clear that altering, falsifying, or tampering with the employee’s or any colleague’s time records is forbidden and grounds for disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
- All handbooks should be drafted with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in mind. The NLRA will guide the employer about what to avoid in the handbook, rather than what to include. The NLRA provides certain protections to employees in union and non-union workplaces when it comes to things like the right to attempt to form a union where none currently exists, or to engage in concerted activity if the employee is acting on the authority of other employees. Employees also have the right to bring group complaints to the employer’s attention, as well as the right to try to induce or prepare for group action. This might apply when two or more employees discuss work-related issues beyond pay, such as safety concerns. Employers should avoid policies that may negatively impact these rights, especially those with non-union workplaces that may not stay as up to date on the NLRA. For instance, the NLRA allows two or more employees to address their employer in a concerted effort to request an increase in pay. Policies that are interpreted as discouraging this type of activity may result in a possible violation of the NLRA, thus employers should avoid policies prohibiting employees from discussing salaries with colleagues.
After verifying the essentials, handbook policies to consider updating for 2025 include:
- Protection of trade secrets and confidential information — including a ban on storage of company information on personal devices. With the trend away from non-competition and other restrictive covenants, many companies have already or are in the process of strengthening protection of company trade secrets and confidential information with heightened security practices, polices, and restrictions. If you have added protections to your company’s policy, those changes should be detailed in your handbook and published to your workforce. If you are in the process of reviewing these policies, consider including policies banning or restricting employee storage or use of company information on personal devices or accounts. Also, make sure your company has procedures in place for the removal and return of company information when employment ends.
- ChatGPT and AI in the workplace. If you have not already included your company’s position on employee use of generative AI tools like Chat GPT in your handbook, now is a good time to do that. Your policy should include instructions on the protection of company proprietary and confidential information if use of AI is allowed.
- Changes to in-person or remote work policies. Was your office part of the growing trend in 2024 requiring full-time in-office work? Did you implement minimum in-office hour requirements to address the “coffee badging” trend? Whatever your remote/in-person/hybrid work requirements currently are, be sure that your handbook reflects any changes to policies according to the work environment applicable to the various employee roles.
- Employee accommodations. The EEOC has issued new guidance and rules regarding employee accommodations, including implementation of final rules for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act in June 2024, requiring a duty to accommodate similar to an employer’s responsibility to accommodate workers with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Other updates include guidance on accommodations for visually impaired workers who request it, childbirth and other medical conditions. And, if your current handbook does not address religious accommodations at all, keep in mind the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Groff v. DeJoy rejecting the “de minimus” test previously applied to religious accommodations and raising the standard for employers to deny religious accommodation.