Everyone has New Year’s Resolutions. Except me. My wife asks me every year, and every year I politely decline. She doesn’t like when I do that.
Some people pledge to lose weight, to get skinnier. This post is about getting skinny with your handbook for 2025—just for temps.
Do you provide your employee handbook to staffing agency temps? Should you?
Generally, I would say no, you should not. The handbook is filled with information about benefits that apply only to your direct employees, not temps. The handbook also probably directs and controls what your workers do, in ways that could make you a joint employer.
Instead, consider rolling out a skinny handbook just for temps.
There are a few polices that should apply to staffing agency temps, and it’s to your benefit to make clear—in writing— that these policies apply. It can be about 6-8 pages. That’s all you need.
Outline for Handbook for Temps
1) Equal Employment Opportunity
- Anti-Discrimination
- Anti-Harassment
- Complaint Procedure
- No Retaliation
2) Site Safety
- Drug and alcohol
- Weapons
- Workplace Threats and Violence
- Accidents, Emergencies, Reporting of Injuries
- Searches, Screening
That’s it. You can include a welcome message too if you’d like. Maybe add a call-off procedure. Check whether references to “employees” should be changed to “workers” or something similar that doesn’t sound like you are conceding joint employer status.
Creating a skinny handbook for temps should take no more than 2-3 hours. If you want to start the year with a quick accomplishment that will add value, this is a good one. And you can even claim it as your New Year’s Resolution.
© 2024 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.
