Free handbook templates
don't know where you operate.
A template gives every business the same policies. Your obligations depend on your state, your headcount and what you actually do — California requires harassment training at five employees, New York's sick-leave entitlement changes at five and again at one hundred, and Texas requires almost none of it. Answer eleven questions and get a handbook assembled for your answers, in Word, for $149 once.
Build my handbook Read the sample firstCovered states
A real 19-page handbook this site generated for a two-state coffee roaster with 18 employees — plus its compliance summary and acknowledgment form.
Tell us where and who
States you employ people in, industry, headcount, who handles HR, how you pay, your time off. Eleven questions, most of them one line.
We assemble, not generate
Every policy comes out of a curated bank where each one carries a published citation and a link to the source it was written from. No language model writes your policies — the words are either bank text or the words you typed, and the build proves it.
Edit, complete, adopt
You get Word and PDF. Items only you can answer are marked
[EMPLOYER TO COMPLETE] and listed on a checklist, so nothing is invented
on your behalf.
What you download
The handbook
Ten sections — welcome and at-will, employment basics, equal opportunity and harassment, pay and hours, leave, benefits, conduct, safety, technology, separation — containing only the policies your answers selected. The sample runs 19 pages.
The compliance summary
Every policy in your handbook, whether it is required by law or a recommended practice, the statute or regulation behind it, and the list of published sources each was written from.
The completion checklist
The items a handbook cannot do for you: name a second person to receive complaints, book California's harassment training, write New York's separate lactation policy, produce California's site-specific workplace violence plan.
What your state actually adds
The difference between a template and a handbook is the state layer. A few examples of what gets added, and only when it applies to you:
- California — paid sick leave, meal and rest periods, lactation accommodation, expense reimbursement under Labor Code 2802, CFRA leave and Pregnancy Disability Leave, harassment training at five employees, the written workplace violence prevention plan, and final pay due immediately on discharge.
- New York — sick leave at 40 or 56 hours depending on your size, 20 hours of paid prenatal leave on top of it, the mandatory written harassment policy and annual training, 30 minutes of paid break time to express breast milk for three years, and Paid Family Leave.
- Texas — the Payday Law and jury service protection. That is close to all of it, and saying so plainly is more useful than padding.
Where this is honest about its limits
This is document preparation, not legal advice, and nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. The policy bank is researched and cited but has not been reviewed by an attorney, and we say so rather than implying otherwise.
Employment law changes. Each policy shows the source it was written from and the date the bank took effect, so you can check it.
Thirteen states are covered today. If yours is not on the list, don't buy — tell us and we will let you know when it is added.
One time. Handbook, compliance summary and acknowledgment form, in Word and PDF. Correct your answers and rebuild up to ten times at no extra cost.
Build my handbookThe handbook builders sold by HR platforms are annual subscriptions, and the services that write one for you bill monthly. This is one good handbook, once — no subscription, and nothing to cancel.