With 2023 around the corner, now is the time for employers to consider updating their employee handbooks. Handbooks, handed out at orientation and often thereafter ignored, are an important compliance tool for employers addressing all manner of employment issues. And handbook policies can be a helpful tool when defending a variety of employment claims, such as wage and hour violations, harassment and discrimination lawsuits, and leave disputes.

An outdated handbook however, can be a liability, particularly for multistate employers with a widely-dispersed work force. These employers in particular must be attuned to the myriad of different employment laws and must be aware of new developments in any states where any employee is located. These complicated compliance requirements may seem tedious or burdensome, especially in an environment where employers are already struggling with recruiting and hiring, but failure to do so can be costly.

Below, we highlight a few particularly key and nuanced issues to assess when deciding whether to update some of the most-referenced sections in any handbook – the paid leave policy, the expense reimbursement policy, and the anti-harassment and discrimination policies.

Paid Leave

The past year saw increasing calls for paid leave laws to be enacted at both the state and local level. And new paid leave laws have come into effect in several states in 2022, like New Mexico’s Healthy Workplaces Act. Indeed, at least 11 states and municipalities...

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