While your employee handbook should receive a regularly-scheduled review to ensure compliance with state and federal law, there are some events that may require additional policies or updates to be added to your employee handbook sooner than your next scheduled update. Most notably, many state and federal employment laws only become applicable to an employer once it reaches a certain size, such as 5, 15, 25 or 50 employees. If your organization is growing, be sure you aware of any new obligations that may be on horizon as your employee count increases. Hiring an employee who will work outside of the state where your headquarters are located should also trigger a handbook review.

Here are examples of the most common reasons that an employee handbook would require amendments or additions to its policies.

• Hiring employees from out of state
• Significant changes to employee count, such as increasing to over 15 or 50 employees or decreasing to below 15 or 50 employees
• Changes in federal, state, or municipal laws, such as paid sick leave
• Merger or acquisition of a new company
• Adoption of a new internal policy, such as unlimited PTO or a Bereavement Leave
• Changes in current policies, such as additional requirements for expense reimbursement or modifications of vacation accrual
• Adjustments in benefit offerings, such as adding the addition of tuition reimbursement or the adoption of a telecommuting policy
• Transitions in management that may affect the complaint procedure policy
• Changes in benefits discussed in the handbook, such a medical, dental, or life insurance

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