Employee handbook template for UK employers
Also searched for as staff handbook template UK, company handbook template UK, employee handbook template Word.
An employee handbook is the document that tells your people how the business works: hours, pay, holiday, sickness, conduct, what happens when something goes wrong. It sits alongside the written statement of particulars, which is the legal contract, and it carries the day-to-day rules that would clutter a contract. Staff handbook, company handbook, employee handbook: same document, three names.
This one is thirteen clauses in Word, written for a UK employer with hourly and salaried staff, aligned to the Acas codes and current employment law, with the sections a tribunal or an inspector expects to find. Put your name on the cover, delete what does not apply, issue it, and have people sign for it.
Is an employee handbook a legal requirement?
The handbook as a single document is not required by law. Several of the things inside it are. Every employee and worker must receive a written statement of particulars on or before their first day, and within two months a note of where to find the disciplinary and grievance procedures. Employers with five or more staff must have a written health and safety policy. Everyone who processes staff data must give a privacy notice. The handbook is the practical way of meeting the second and third of those and of publishing everything else that keeps the workplace consistent.
What a handbook does that nothing else does is prove that people were told. When someone is disciplined for something the handbook forbids, or dismissed after a procedure the handbook sets out, the signed acknowledgement is the evidence that the rule and the process were known. Employers without one end up arguing about what was said in the yard.
What is in this template
Thirteen numbered clauses with sub-clauses, a branded cover page and a sign-off block. In outline:
- Welcome and scope, stating that the handbook is non-contractual and can be updated.
- Contract, hours, pay and payslips, including the itemised payslip detail the Employment Rights Act requires, overtime and time off in lieu.
- Probation, with mid-point and end-point reviews.
- Holiday: the 5.6-week entitlement, how to request it, carry-over rules under the Working Time Regulations, and what happens on leaving.
- Sickness reporting, pointing to the separate sickness absence policy.
- Conduct, with a full gross misconduct list.
- Equality and dignity at work, with the Worker Protection Act 2023 duty to prevent sexual harassment flagged.
- Confidentiality and UK GDPR.
- Health and safety, including the individual duty under section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
- Company property and IT acceptable use.
- Notice periods and post-employment confidentiality.
- Right to work and references.
- How the handbook is updated, and the approval and revision history block.
Contractual or non-contractual?
Keep it non-contractual, and this template says so in clause one. A contractual handbook cannot be changed without every employee's agreement, so the day the law moves you are stuck with the old wording. A non-contractual handbook is a set of rules and procedures the employer can update on reasonable notice, while the things that must be contractual (pay, hours, holiday, notice) live in the written statement. Where the two differ, the written statement wins, and the handbook should say that too.
How to fill it in
- Cover page: company name, version number, effective date. Keep the version number; you will be asked which version someone signed.
- Search the document for the square-bracket placeholders and replace every one. A handbook that still says [COMPANY NAME] on page nine was plainly never read by the person issuing it.
- Delete clauses that do not apply and say nothing you will not enforce. A rule that is never applied is worse than no rule, because it shows the others are optional too.
- Check the numbers against your own terms: notice periods, holiday year, probation length, sick pay. The template uses the statutory minimums and common practice; your written statement may give more.
- Issue it to every employee, new and existing, and take a signed acknowledgement. Keep the signed page on the personnel file. Work-Lynx holds the current version and records who has acknowledged it.
Keeping it current
Employment law moves in April and October most years, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 is bringing changes through 2026 and 2027: statutory sick pay from day one, changes to unfair dismissal qualifying service, new rights for zero-hours workers. Review the handbook once a year and whenever a change lands, update the version number, and re-issue the changed pages. The revision history block on the last page is where that record lives.
The mistakes that cost employers
- Copying a large company's handbook. Their procedures assume an HR department; yours has a manager and a phone.
- Making it contractual by accident, by saying "forms part of your contract" on the cover.
- Rules nobody enforces, which turn every later warning into an argument about inconsistency.
- Never re-issuing it. A handbook dated 2019 is evidence of neglect, not of a policy.
- No signed acknowledgement, so the only proof anyone read it is your memory.
Questions people ask
Is a staff handbook the same as an employee handbook?
Yes. Staff handbook, employee handbook and company handbook are the same document under different names. This template works for any of them; change the title on the cover page.
Do I need a handbook if I only have two or three employees?
You still need the written statement, the disciplinary and grievance information and a privacy notice, and once you reach five staff a written health and safety policy. A short handbook is the easiest way to hold them. The template is designed to be cut down, not padded out.
What is the difference between the handbook and the contract?
The contract, in law the written statement of particulars, sets the terms you and the employee are bound by: pay, hours, holiday, notice, place of work. The handbook sets the rules and procedures around them, and should be non-contractual so you can update it. Where they conflict, the contract wins.
Do casual and zero-hours staff get the handbook?
Yes. They are workers at least, and the rules on conduct, safety, confidentiality and data apply to them. Issue it and take the acknowledgement the same way.
How often should it be reviewed?
Once a year, and whenever employment law changes, which is most Aprils and some Octobers. Change the version number each time and re-issue the affected pages.
Why is it free?
Because the handbook is the front of the folder and the folder is what Work-Lynx sells: 49 UK policies preloaded, holiday and absence tracked, and the acknowledgements recorded, for £2.50 a month plus £1 per employee. The handbook works without it.
When you outgrow Word documents
Work-Lynx holds this and 48 other UK policies, records who has acknowledged each one, tracks holiday, absence and training, and answers the questions in between with Employ AI. £2.50 a month plus £1 per employee, 14 days free, no card. The template works without it.
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