How to Make a Workplace Agreement
Every employer wants to make sure that every employee understands that there are certain rules that should be followed in the workplace. They want their employees to understand that these rules are there to ensure that an office is a place where everyone can feel comfortable and ensure that there is order within the company.
However, there may still be those employees that are willing to break some of these rules. So, in order for employers to make sure that these employees stick to these workplace regulations, they need their employees sign workplace agreement forms. This article is going to focus on how you are going to make such a document that’s as effective as possible.
What Your Workplace Agreement Should Contain
Again, it’s important to point out that you would want employees to know how they should behave and what is expected of them in the workplace from the very moment that they are employed. So if you want to make an agreement that will educate your employees in an effective manner, then here are the pieces of information that this type of document should contain:
1. Their Duties and Responsibilities
Considering the fact that these people should be able to understand what it is they are supposed to be doing the moment they have read their job description, you should point out that they should only conduct those tasks that they have been appointed to perform unless told otherwise.
The purpose of pointing out what they are authorized to do is to ensure they will not take part in any activities that will put the entire company, or those who are involved with the company in any danger. You may also like employee termination agreement.
2. The Policies of Your Company
The reason as to why you made these company policies in the first place is so that everyone within the office understands what they should and should not do. Make sure that you’re very clear when stating that employees will have to follow all of the policies that have been set by the company unless they would want to find themselves in situations wherein they will either be terminated, face legal action, or possibly even both.
Ensure that you have a ready document and all the employees must have a copy of the document that contains all the rules and procedures that have to be followed in the workplace. Also, you want to have these employees sign these documents to ensure that they have read and understood all of these policies as well as their consequences. You may also like employment agreement templates.
If you think that it’s not enough, then you can always provide employee training programs where you appoint someone to discuss with these employees about the different policies of your company. This way, it’s ensured that all the participants of the program will have no excuse should they violate any of the rules in your business. Again, it’s important that you have these people sign a document at the end of the training to ensure that they have attended, listened, and understood everything that was discussed.
3. Behavior Within the Workplace
You want to make sure that these people understand that you want your workplace to be one that produces a positive image of your company culture. Your agreement has to state the kind of behavior that your company will not tolerate. So here are a couple of things that you can include:
- Any form of insubordination. You do not want any of your employees to show disrespect to any person within the office that has a higher authority. Point out that your company is one where all of its employees must respect one another, even more so if they’re dealing with someone with a higher position. You may also like incentive agreement samples.
- Failure to comply with productivity and performance expectations. While there are a number of things that could heavily affect an employee’s performance, as soon as it’s seen that an employee has not been meeting expectations, management will then conduct the necessary disciplinary actions to ensure the employee gets back on track.
- Acts of theft. Whether an employee is stealing property that belongs to the company or the personal belongings of another, you need to state that this sort of act will not go without any consequences.
- Discrimination. This kind of problem is very common in just about every company. You also have to be specific when it comes to the kind of discrimination that you will not allow in the office. So that’s everything from race, age, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality and much more. You may also like HR confidentiality agreement.
- Acts of violence. You do not want any employee to get hurt or to conduct in any acts that could potentially hurt another. Be sure that you’re clear that any employees who decide to physically assault any member of the company will be terminated on the spot. You may also like indemnity agreement templates.
- Drugs and alcohol. An office environment should always remain clean and healthy so that there will be no health issues that will be triggered. If an employee were to induce alcohol or drugs while on the job, then that could severely limit his/her performance to the point where he/she may be incapable of performing even the most basic duties. Be sure that you’re clear in that your company will not allow any employee to make use of drugs or alcohol within the workplace. You may also like employee contract templates.
- Smoking. This is pretty obvious considering that this could potentially become a fire hazard. If you have a smoking policy in your workplace, then you can use that to point out if employees are allowed to smoke. But make sure that you point out that they are only allowed to smoke in designated areas and smoking within the confines of the office will is not acceptable. If your policy states that there should be no smoking at all, then be sure that you make it clear in the agreement.
Accidents and Incidents Within the Workplace
There are bound to be instances wherein there accidents or incidents will take place in the workplace. This is the reason why you have to point out in the workplace agreement that should an employee happen to witness any of these take place, then that person must be able to come up with a detailed accident and incident report.
The point of doing this is to make sure that the company understands what has happened, who are the people that were involved, the location in which it took place, the time of the event and just about any other details that could help clarify exactly what happened.
Also, you want to point out that employees must do everything that they can to prevent these accidents or incidents from happening by reporting any possible risks that they come across. This way, you can make sure that these problems do not become major enough to affect your entire workplace.
The Disciplinary Actions that will be Taken Against the Employee
You have to state in your workplace agreement about the kind of disciplinary action that will be taken against an employee should any of them conduct in behavior that could negatively affect the company or if they do anything that could jeopardize the company or the safety of anyone involved. So, here are the disciplinary actions that you will have to place in your agreement form:
1. Verbal Warning
This is done for the minor offenses that an employee commits. So let’s say you noticed that a particular employee has been coming late to work by 5 minutes, you don’t just fire him/her right away now, do you? With a verbal warning, you have basically told the employee the problem and that he/she should correct it without any consequence whatsoever.
2. Written Warning
This is for those employees that have continuously failed to meet the expectations of the company or who have done acts which can be considered as unacceptable, but not on the grounds of termination. This would include failing to meet the company’s standards in terms of their productivity and performance.
3. Final Written Warning
This is the kind of document that’s normally given prior to an employee getting fired. If an employee fails to heed the previous written warning, then he/she will be reminded that the company can terminate him/her if it continues. It’s sort of like a final resort and a last chance for the employee.
4. Termination
If the employee fails to heed the printable written warning or has done anything that could endanger the company or the people that work on it, then the company has all the rights to terminate his/her employment immediately. Just make sure that you follow the procedures in your company’s termination process while doing so to prevent having any lawsuits filed against you.
If you would like to learn more about how to create a workplace agreement for your company or anything that’s related to this particular topic, then all you have to do is go through any of our available articles on our site until you are able to come up with the information that should be able to help you and your business out.