Requiring Acknowledgement Forms
In addition to disseminating the employee handbook to all employees, employers should require each employee to sign a form acknowledging receipt of the employee handbook and the responsibility to review the same. Signed acknowledgment forms should be maintained in employee personnel files. Once this has been done, employees cannot credibly disclaim having received notice of all policies in the employee handbook. It also is a good idea to specifically reference important policies (e.g., a harassment policy with a complaint reporting procedure) in the acknowledgment form so that an employee cannot later claim that he/she did not realize that the employee handbook contained the policy at issue.
Authored By: Bill Wortel & Christy Panthavong at Bryan Cave LLP
