Is an employer required to follow the employee handbook?
Yes, but the employee handbook doesn’t say what you think it says. Fifteen years ago, employee handbooks were the bread and butter of wrongful termination attorneys, because they created a way to get around the at-will employment rule (discussed above). The handbooks were written to keep the employees happy by showing the benevolence of the employer. Typically the handbook would contain a section explaining that before terminating an employee, the company would first issue a verbal warning, then a written warning, then the employee would be placed on an action plan and finally if the errant behavior did not improve, the employee would be suspended for a set number of days. Only after all these steps had been followed could the employee be terminated. If a terminated employee could show that he or she relied on the employee handbook, that created an implied agreement. Thus, if the employer failed to follow the handbook and, say, terminated an employee without the requisite suspension, t
