Invention

Employee handbook

The first handbooks were written to protect employers, not to welcome employees.

United States · 1940s

The employee handbook emerged in American corporations during the 1940s, driven by wartime workforce expansion and the growing complexity of federal labor regulations following the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.1

Early handbooks were legal instruments, drafted by management to document company policies in writing so that disciplinary actions and terminations could be defended in court or before arbitrators.

The National War Labor Board, established in 1942, required employers to demonstrate consistent application of workplace rules. Written policy manuals became a practical necessity.2 By the 1960s, the civil rights movement and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 added new urgency. Companies needed to document anti-discrimination policies and grievance procedures.3

The modern handbook typically opens with a welcome message and company values, followed by detailed policies on attendance, dress code, harassment, benefits, and grounds for termination. Many include an at-will employment disclaimer.

A 2014 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that more than ninety percent of employers in the United States maintained a written employee handbook.4 New employees are often required to sign an acknowledgment confirming they have received and read it.

Timeline

1938

The Fair Labor Standards Act created new federal requirements that employers increasingly documented in written form.

1942

The National War Labor Board required consistent application of workplace rules, accelerating adoption of written policy manuals.

1964

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act required documentation of anti-discrimination policies.

Endnotes

1 Raymond L. Hilgert and David A. Dilts, Cases in Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008).

2 Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

3 Alfred W. Blumrosen, Modern Law: The Law Transmission System and Equal Employment Opportunity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993).

4 Society for Human Resource Management, "Employee Handbooks: Critical Issues" (SHRM, 2014).