How do I write a handbook policy that is compliant in multiple states?
- Claire Baker
- Jan 17
- 2 min read
How do you create a consistent employee experience when everyone lives under different laws?
Parental leave policies are hard enough. But what if your team is spread across multiple states?
And countries?
As teams become more distributed, creating a consistent employee experience becomes more difficult. And nowhere is consistency more challenging than with parental leave.
Every family is different.
Every position has different needs and responsibilities.
Every manager makes decisions differently.
Every state has different laws and benefits.
Every country has different laws and benefits.
And here you are trying to come up with one policy to rule them all.
So how do you do it?
I've written dozens of policies for multi-state and global teams. Here’s how I handle it:
(Caveat: I’m usually working with distributed teams where similarly-situated employees could be anywhere in the world. If your teams tend to be colocated, your experience may be different.)
1️⃣ DEFAULT TO THE MOST GENEROUS REQUIREMENT
If you have a different rule for every situation, you’ll drive yourself crazy and create a terrible employee experience. Whenever possible, choose the most generous option that meets or exceeds the requirements everywhere.
2️⃣ DECIDE HOW YOU’LL HANDLE VARIATION
For the requirements that you can’t implement everywhere, decide on a governing philosophy for handling outliers.
For example, how will you manage states with state-paid leave and those without? Will you top up so that everyone gets the same pay through different avenues? Or pay everyone the same and leave them to navigate their local programs?
If you have team members in Norway who are entitled to 49 weeks of full pay and team members in North Dakota who are entitled to nothing, what's the plan?
3️⃣ EXPLAIN YOURSELF
Include a section in your policy, communication templates, and process documents that explains your governing philosophy to the team and decision-makers.
People are a lot more understanding when they know why they’re being treated this way. (Even if they disagree.)
4️⃣ GIVE DECISION MAKERS A ROADMAP
Help your managers, HR team, and leadership make consistent decisions by explaining how your governing philosophy applies in different situations. If they don't understand the reasoning, they'll go rogue.
Every decision looks different in the abstract vs. when you have a real person sitting in front of you. If fairness requires that someone makes a decision that feels shitty, give your decision-makers the context that they need to follow the policy (and still sleep at night).
5️⃣ DON’T MAKE ANY RULES THAT YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO FOLLOW YOURSELF
Do a gut check: If you were early in your career, would you want this rule applied to you? If the answer is no, look for an alternative solution. If you can’t find one, spend more time on steps 2 and 3.
Need help writing a handbook that you can actually stick to and won't make your team hate you? We can help.
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