A growing company in Okhla dismisses a salesman for fiddling expenses and loses the case, because its “policy” was an email from two years ago that nobody had acknowledged. A startup in Gurugram is asked by an investor’s due diligence team for its equal opportunity policy and discovers it has never heard of one. A retailer in Karol Bagh settles every resignation in forty-five days and is told the law gives it two. None of them needed a thicker handbook. Each needed the right policies, written down, linked to the contract and known to the staff. This page is about how to get there.
An HR policy does three jobs, and most handbooks do only the first.
The first is information: telling employees what the working hours are, how to apply for leave, when salary is paid, whom to call about a problem. That is the part most handbooks cover, often at length.
The second is compliance: recording that the employer has put in place the policies, committees and procedures the law requires of it. An inspector, an investor’s due diligence team, a court hearing a complaint or a client auditing its supplier will ask to see them. A handbook that has a beautifully written leave policy but no equal opportunity policy, no named complaint officer and a POSH policy with an outdated committee fails at exactly the point it will be tested.
The third is enforceability: turning the employer’s rules into obligations it can rely on when something goes wrong. That requires the policy to be linked to the employment contract, communicated, acknowledged, applied consistently, and fair in its procedures. A rule that exists only in the HR manager’s head, or in an unacknowledged email, cannot support a dismissal, a recovery or a refusal of a benefit.
This page is about all three, with most attention on the second and third, because those are where Indian employers most often discover, too late, that their policy did not do what they thought. For the individual employment contract — notice, probation, gratuity, restraint and termination — see our employment agreement guide, which this page builds on without repeating.
Before writing any policy, the employer has to know which labour laws apply to it, because the answer changes what the policies must say. Three questions decide it.
What kind of establishment is it? Offices, shops, restaurants, clinics and most service businesses are governed, for hours, leave, holidays and conditions of work, by the shops and establishments law of the State where the workplace is — in Delhi, the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act, 1954. Factories are governed by the factories and occupational safety law. Some sectors — plantations, mines, transport, construction — have their own rules.
How many people does it employ? Thresholds decide a great deal: an Internal Committee under the POSH Act at ten employees, provident fund and employees’ state insurance at their respective thresholds, a grievance committee at twenty workers, standing orders at the higher industrial threshold, gratuity at ten. Headcount should be counted as the law counts it, which may include contract and temporary staff for some purposes.
Which central laws apply, and in what form? Parliament has consolidated most central labour laws into four codes — the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. The Central Government brought them into force in November 2025, and the central and State rules under them are being notified in stages. Until the rules for a particular obligation are in force in a particular State, the position can be transitional. We check the current rules for your State and sector when drafting, rather than assume.
Different employers need different handbooks, but some policies and mechanisms are required by statute, and those come first. The table lists the main ones; the thresholds and details are explained in the sections that follow.
| Requirement | Law | Who it applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Policy against sexual harassment; Internal Committee | POSH Act, 2013 | Every employer; Internal Committee where ten or more employees |
| Equal opportunity policy for persons with disabilities | RPwD Act, 2016, Section 21 | Every establishment, as the rules prescribe |
| Non-discrimination and a complaint officer | Transgender Persons Act, 2019 | Every establishment |
| Standing orders on conditions of employment | Industrial relations law | Industrial establishments above the prescribed number of workers |
| Grievance Redressal Committee | Industrial Relations Code, 2020 | Industrial establishments with twenty or more workers |
| Vigil mechanism for reporting concerns | Companies Act, 2013, Section 177 | Listed companies and prescribed classes of companies |
| Leave, hours, weekly holiday and notices | State shops and establishments law | Offices, shops and commercial establishments |
Beyond these, the law requires many registers, notices and returns — wage registers, attendance, leave, provident fund and insurance filings — which are compliance tasks rather than policies but which the handbook should reflect. Our PF registration and ESI registration services cover the registrations.
The remaining policies in a handbook — conduct, IT, travel, work from home, performance — are the employer’s choices. They are not legally required, but once adopted they should be consistent with the mandatory ones and with the law. A generous leave policy that forgets the statutory minimum, or a disciplinary policy that ignores the notice requirement in the State’s shops law, creates exposure rather than protection.
An employer’s rules bind an employee only to the extent they form part of the terms of employment or are lawful instructions within them. The link between handbook and contract therefore has to be made deliberately.
The usual method is a clause in the appointment letter or employment agreement stating that the employee will comply with the company’s policies as in force from time to time, that the current policies are in the handbook provided, and that the employee has read them. The employee then signs a separate acknowledgement of the handbook, and again after each significant revision.
Two categories of provision need care. Provisions that confer benefits — leave above the statutory minimum, bonuses, allowances, reimbursements, notice pay — are likely to be treated as contractual once employees have relied on them, and cannot then be withdrawn at will. Provisions that set obligations on the employee — conduct rules, confidentiality, recovery of training costs, notice periods — bind only if they were part of the agreed terms or reasonable instructions, and a court will look for evidence that the employee knew of them.
Where the handbook and the individual contract conflict, the contract should say which prevails. The usual rule is that the individual contract prevails on individual terms — salary, notice, designation — and the handbook governs everything else. Without such a rule, every inconsistency becomes an argument, and employees will reasonably rely on whichever document is more favourable to them.
Businesses change, and policies must change with them. The question is how far an employer can change a policy without each employee’s agreement.
A handbook usually reserves the right to amend policies, and for purely administrative matters — how to apply for leave, which form to use, who approves travel — that is effective. For changes that reduce an established benefit or add a significant burden, a reservation of the right to amend does not always suffice. A change that takes away accrued leave, reduces an allowance employees have been receiving for years, or imposes a new bond or recovery obligation is likely to require consent, or at least to be applied only to future periods and new joiners.
For workmen in industrial establishments, industrial relations law has long required an employer to give prior notice before changing certain conditions of service — such as wages, hours, leave, and shift working — and the Industrial Relations Code continues that requirement. Certified standing orders can be modified only through the process the law provides, not by an HR circular.
Good practice is simple: explain the change and the reason, give notice before it takes effect, apply it prospectively, protect accrued rights, obtain fresh acknowledgement, and keep a record of the version history. A change made this way is rarely challenged; a change announced overnight by email usually is.
For factories and other industrial establishments above a certain size, the law has for decades required something more formal than a handbook: standing orders, certified by the labour authority, that set out the conditions of employment.
Under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, industrial establishments employing one hundred or more workers — a threshold some States lowered — had to frame standing orders on prescribed matters and have them certified. The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 continues the concept with a higher threshold and a central model, and allows establishments to adopt the model standing orders with modifications. The subjects are those that matter most on a shop floor: classification of workers as permanent, probationer, temporary or apprentice; hours of work, shifts and holidays; attendance and late coming; leave; termination and notice; misconduct; and the procedure for suspension and dismissal.
Certified standing orders have statutory force and bind both employer and workers; an employer cannot act contrary to them by relying on a handbook or contract. Where an establishment is covered but has not framed standing orders, the model standing orders generally apply. Standing orders must be displayed at the workplace in English and in the language understood by the majority of workers.
For offices and service businesses outside the industrial framework, standing orders are not required, but their structure — clear classification, clear misconduct list, clear disciplinary procedure — is a good model for the handbook.
Get a handbook that fits your size and State — pay after the work
Working hours are regulated, and the handbook must stay within the limits. For offices and shops in Delhi, the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act, 1954 fixes a maximum number of hours a day and a week, requires a rest interval, limits the spread of the working day, requires a weekly day off, and requires overtime to be paid at a higher rate. Factories have their own limits under the factories and occupational safety law. The detailed figures should be taken from the current Act and rules for your State and sector, because they have been, and continue to be, amended.
The policy should state the normal working hours and days, the rest interval, the weekly off, how overtime is authorised and paid, and how attendance is recorded. Senior and managerial staff are sometimes outside the hours provisions, but the policy should not assume that every salaried employee is.
Shifts and night work need their own rules. Many State laws now permit women to work at night in shops and establishments, subject to conditions such as consent, safe transport, security and adequate numbers on the shift; the conditions differ between States and should be reflected exactly.
Flexible hours and compressed weeks are increasingly common and useful, but they have to fit within the statutory maximums. A policy that allows employees to work longer days in exchange for a four-day week, for example, must check that the longer days do not exceed the daily limit or the permitted spread-over.
Leave is the policy employees read most carefully, and the one most often written without reference to the law.
The statutory minimum comes first. For offices and shops in Delhi, the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act provides privilege or earned leave after a period of continuous service, sick or casual leave each year, and a weekly holiday, with rules on accumulation. Factories have their own annual leave rules. National holidays — Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti — and a set number of festival holidays are prescribed by separate laws in many States. A leave policy may give more, but never less, and should not make statutory leave conditional on conditions the law does not impose.
Maternity leave is governed by the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 and now the Code on Social Security — twenty-six weeks for the first two children, with provisions for adoption and commissioning mothers — as our employment agreement guide explains. Paternity leave, bereavement leave and menstrual leave are not statutory for private employers in most States and are the employer’s choice.
The policy should cover how leave is applied for and approved, what happens to unused leave at year end — carry-forward limits and encashment — how leave is treated on resignation, and what counts as unauthorised absence. Encashment of unused earned leave on exit is required under some State laws and is a common source of claims when it is not paid. The leave register should be kept in the prescribed form.
The Code on Wages, 2019 consolidates the law on payment of wages, minimum wages, bonus and equal remuneration, and several of its rules affect the handbook directly.
The wage period must be fixed — daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly — and wages paid within the time the Code allows after the end of the period. Deductions from wages are permitted only for the purposes and within the limits the Code specifies — fines for specified acts after due process, deductions for absence, for damage or loss caused by the employee’s neglect after giving an opportunity to explain, for advances, for taxes and for contributions — and a policy that allows any other deduction is unlawful to that extent.
On separation, the Code requires that where an employee has been removed, dismissed, retrenched, or has resigned, or has become unemployed due to closure of the establishment, the wages payable to him be paid within two working days. Many companies’ “full and final settlement within forty-five days” practice should be revisited in that light. Gratuity, provident fund and other benefits follow their own timelines; the two-day rule is about wages.
The Code also requires equal remuneration for the same work or work of a similar nature, without discrimination on the ground of gender, in wages and in recruitment. A pay policy should record that principle and the objective criteria — role, experience, performance — on which pay differences are based.
Social security benefits are statutory, and the handbook’s job is to describe them accurately rather than to create them.
Provident fund and employees’ state insurance apply to establishments above their respective thresholds and to employees within the wage limits, with contributions from employer and employee. The policy should state that the company is registered, how contributions are calculated, and how employees can access their accounts. Gratuity is payable after five years of continuous service, and in some cases earlier, and can be forfeited only on the grounds the law allows, as our employment agreement guide explains. Bonus is payable to eligible employees within the wage ceiling under the bonus law, now part of the Code on Wages. Our gratuity and bonus computation service handles the calculations.
Maternity benefit includes paid leave, nursing breaks, work from home where the nature of work allows and the parties agree, and a crèche facility where the establishment is above the threshold. The policy should also state that no employee will be dismissed or disadvantaged because of pregnancy or maternity leave.
The most common error in this area is not in the policy but in the practice: benefits described in the handbook but not implemented, or contributions not deposited. A handbook that describes benefits the company is not providing is evidence against it.
The code of conduct is the part of the handbook that defines what the employer expects in behaviour, and, by implication, what can lead to discipline.
A useful code is specific. It covers honesty in records, expenses and dealings; confidentiality of business and customer information, alongside the employee’s confidentiality agreement; conflicts of interest — outside employment, family relationships with suppliers or subordinates, investments in competitors — and a duty to disclose them; gifts and hospitality, with limits and a register; anti-bribery, recognising that bribery of public servants is an offence and that companies can be liable where persons associated with them bribe; use of company property; attendance and punctuality; substance abuse; workplace safety; and respectful behaviour.
The code should then connect to discipline: a list of acts that constitute misconduct, distinguishing minor misconduct, which may lead to warnings, from major misconduct — theft, fraud, violence, harassment, wilful insubordination, disclosure of confidential information — which may justify dismissal after due process. For industrial establishments, the misconduct list in the standing orders governs.
A code of conduct should apply equally to everyone, including senior management and directors. A code that is enforced against junior staff and ignored at the top loses both its moral force and, in any dispute, its credibility.
The prevention of sexual harassment of women at the workplace is the one policy almost every Indian employer is required to have, and our POSH policy guide covers it in full: the definition of sexual harassment, the Internal Committee for workplaces with ten or more employees, the external member, the inquiry procedure and timelines, the annual report, and the penalties for non-compliance. The POSH policy and IC constitution service puts it in place.
What this page adds is the relationship between the POSH policy and the rest of the handbook. The POSH policy should be a separate, complete document, not a paragraph in the code of conduct, because its procedure is statutory and must be followed exactly. The general code of conduct should prohibit harassment and bullying of everyone, including men and persons of any gender, with a separate internal procedure for complaints the POSH Act does not cover.
The disciplinary policy should state that where the Internal Committee recommends action, the employer will act on its recommendation in accordance with the service rules, and that a separate disciplinary enquiry will not duplicate the Committee’s inquiry. And the handbook should name the Committee’s members and how to contact them, updated whenever they change — an outdated list is one of the commonest compliance failures.
Two statutes require every establishment — not only large ones — to take specific steps that most small and medium employers have never heard of.
Under Section 21 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, every establishment shall notify an equal opportunity policy detailing the measures it proposes to take for persons with disabilities, in the manner prescribed by the rules. The rules require the policy to cover matters such as facilities and amenities for employees with disabilities, the posts identified as suitable, the manner of selection, provisions for training and promotion, and a liaison officer. The Act also prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in employment and requires reasonable accommodation.
Under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, no establishment shall discriminate against a transgender person in matters of employment, including recruitment, promotion and other related issues, and every establishment shall designate a person to be the complaint officer to deal with complaints relating to violation of the Act. The handbook should therefore include a non-discrimination policy covering gender identity, and name the complaint officer.
Both requirements are simple to meet and are increasingly checked in investor, client and certification audits. A comprehensive equal opportunity and non-discrimination policy, covering disability, gender, gender identity, religion, caste, age and other grounds, with the two statutory elements built in, satisfies both Acts and states the employer’s wider commitment.
Every workplace produces grievances — about pay, leave, a manager’s behaviour, a transfer, a missed promotion. An employer that has no route for them to be raised and answered will meet them later as resignations, complaints to authorities, or disputes.
For industrial establishments employing twenty or more workers, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 requires a Grievance Redressal Committee for the resolution of disputes arising out of individual grievances. The Committee has equal representation from the employer and the workers, a chairperson chosen alternately from each side, and women represented in proportion to women workers, with a cap on the total number of members. A worker may raise a grievance before the Committee within a prescribed time, the Committee must complete its proceedings within a prescribed period, and a worker not satisfied may prefer an appeal to the employer and pursue the remedies under the Code.
For every other employer, a written grievance procedure is good practice. It should say how a grievance is raised and to whom, including an alternative where the grievance is about the employee’s own manager; how quickly it will be acknowledged and answered; whether the employee may be accompanied at a meeting; how the decision will be communicated; and to whom an appeal lies.
The grievance procedure should be distinct from the POSH procedure, which is statutory and has its own committee and timelines, and from the whistleblower mechanism, which deals with concerns about wrongdoing affecting the organisation rather than personal complaints. A handbook that sends everything to “HR” without distinguishing them will route complaints to the wrong place.
Some concerns employees raise are not grievances about their own treatment but reports of wrongdoing: fraud, falsified accounts, bribery, safety violations, misuse of customer data. A whistleblowing policy gives them a safe route to report, and gives the organisation a chance to act before a regulator or the press does.
For some companies it is mandatory. Section 177 of the Companies Act, 2013, read with the rules, requires listed companies and certain other classes of companies — broadly, those that accept deposits from the public and those that have borrowed from banks and public financial institutions above a prescribed amount — to establish a vigil mechanism for directors and employees to report genuine concerns. The mechanism must provide adequate safeguards against victimisation of those who use it, and direct access to the chairperson of the audit committee in appropriate or exceptional cases, and its details must be disclosed on the company’s website and in the board’s report.
For others, a whistleblowing policy is voluntary but valuable. It should say what can be reported, to whom — ideally someone independent of line management — how reports can be made, including anonymously, how they will be investigated and how the reporter will be kept informed, and, above all, that no one will suffer retaliation for a report made in good faith. It should also say that knowingly false reports are misconduct.
Businesses in regulated sectors — financial services, healthcare, data processing — and those supplying larger clients, increasingly find that a whistleblowing policy is expected in audits whether or not the Companies Act requires it.
The disciplinary procedure is the part of the handbook most likely to be scrutinised by a court or labour authority, and the part most often written as an afterthought.
Indian law, through decades of decisions on domestic enquiries and through statutes such as the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act and the standing orders framework, requires that an employee accused of misconduct be treated fairly before serious action is taken. Our labour court guide explains how enquiries are tested when challenged. The handbook’s job is to set out a procedure that meets that standard every time.
A procedure that holds up usually has these steps. A preliminary inquiry to see whether there is a case. Where there is, a written charge sheet or show-cause notice stating the specific allegations and the evidence, with a reasonable time to reply. Where the facts are disputed, an enquiry by a person who is not a witness or the complainant, at which the employee can see the evidence, question witnesses and present his own, and may be accompanied by a co-worker. A written finding with reasons. A decision on penalty, proportionate to the misconduct and taking account of the employee’s record, communicated in writing. And an appeal to a more senior person.
The procedure should also cover suspension pending enquiry — with subsistence allowance where the law requires it — and the range of penalties: warning, censure, withholding of increment, demotion, and dismissal. For employees protected by the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act’s notice requirement, dismissal without notice is possible only for misconduct established at an enquiry, as our employment agreement guide explains. A short procedure followed every time is worth far more than a long one followed when convenient.
Poor performance and misconduct are different, and a handbook that treats them the same will produce unfair outcomes and weak defences.
Probation is the period in which the employer assesses suitability. The policy should state its length, whether it can be extended and how, what assessment will take place, and what notice applies during and after it. The employment agreement guide covers probation’s legal nature; the handbook should make the process real — objectives at the start, a mid-point review, a written decision at the end.
Performance management for confirmed employees should rest on clear objectives, regular feedback and a documented appraisal. Where performance falls short, a performance improvement plan with specific targets, support and a reasonable period gives the employee a fair chance and gives the employer a record. Termination for poor performance, where it follows, should be based on that record and should follow the contract and the statutory notice requirements, not the disciplinary procedure, unless the poor performance involves wilful neglect.
Appraisal and increments policies should state the cycle, the criteria, who decides, and how disagreements are raised. Promises in the handbook of automatic annual increments or guaranteed bonuses are likely to be treated as contractual entitlements; if the employer intends discretion, the policy should say so clearly.
Almost every employee now uses company systems, and many use personal devices for work. An IT and acceptable use policy protects the company’s systems and data, and sets expectations that can be enforced.
The policy should cover acceptable use of company systems, email and internet; passwords and access controls; installation of software; use of personal devices for work, including security requirements and the company’s right to remove company data from them; use of generative AI and external tools with company information; reporting of security incidents and lost devices; and return of devices and data on exit. It should link to confidentiality obligations and to the company’s obligations to its own customers, which often include security terms passed down from their contracts.
Social media policies should distinguish between employees speaking for the company, which should need authorisation, and employees speaking for themselves, where the company’s legitimate interest is limited to confidential information, harassment of colleagues, and statements that could be mistaken for the company’s. Overbroad bans on employees saying anything about their workplace are difficult to justify and to enforce.
Monitoring of email, systems and devices must be disclosed in the policy, proportionate to a legitimate purpose, and consistent with data protection law. Covert monitoring, or monitoring of personal accounts and devices beyond what the policy discloses, creates legal and trust risks that usually outweigh what it finds.
An employer holds a great deal of personal data about its people: identity documents, addresses, bank details, salary, family and nominee details, health information for leave and insurance, performance records, and sometimes background verification reports. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the employer is a data fiduciary for that data.
The Act recognises that employers need to process employees’ data, and permits processing for the purposes of employment and related purposes as a legitimate use, without fresh consent for each activity. But the other obligations remain: to process only what is necessary, to protect it with reasonable security safeguards, to ensure that vendors processing it — payroll providers, HR software, background verification agencies, insurers — do so under proper contracts, to handle breaches as the rules require, and to erase data when it is no longer needed and no law requires it to be kept. Our DPDP guide sets out the framework, and our DPDP compliance review applies it.
The handbook should include an employee privacy notice explaining what data is collected, why, who it is shared with, how long it is kept, and how employees can raise concerns. Retention should respect the periods labour and tax laws require for registers and records, and should not keep everything forever.
Access within the company should be limited: payroll data to payroll, health data to those who need it for leave or insurance, disciplinary records to HR and the decision-makers. Most employee data breaches are internal — a salary sheet emailed to the wrong list — and are prevented by access rules rather than technology.
Work from home and hybrid arrangements are now normal in many offices, and they need a policy of their own rather than an informal understanding.
The policy should cover eligibility — which roles, after what period, and how an employee applies; working hours and availability, including core hours and response expectations; equipment — what the company provides, who owns it, and how it is returned; expenses — internet, electricity or a fixed allowance; data security and confidentiality at home; health and safety of the home workstation; attendance at the office on set days or for meetings; and how the arrangement may be varied or ended, with notice.
The law on hours, leave and pay applies wherever the work is done. An employee working from home is still entitled to the weekly off and to overtime rules where they apply, and the employer’s duty of care does not disappear. The Code on Social Security has also recognised work from home for women after maternity leave where the nature of work permits, on terms agreed with the employer.
Where employees work from another State for long periods, the question of which State’s shops and establishments law and professional tax apply can arise; the policy should require approval for working from outside the office’s State for more than a short period.
Travel and expense policies seem administrative, but they are the source of a large share of disciplinary cases — inflated claims, personal expenses charged to the company — and those cases depend on a clear policy.
The policy should state entitlements by grade — class of travel, hotel limits, daily allowances — the approval required before travel, the documents required for reimbursement, the time within which claims must be submitted, and the consequences of false claims. It should require original bills or GST invoices in the company’s name where the company claims input tax credit, and should deal with advances and their settlement.
Gifts and hospitality should be covered either here or in the code of conduct: limits on value, a prohibition on cash gifts, a register of gifts received and given, and particular care with gifts to or from government officials. A company whose employees give inappropriate gifts to obtain business can itself face liability under anti-corruption law, and a clear policy, consistently enforced, is part of showing that it took adequate steps to prevent that.
Expense policies should be enforced consistently. A policy that is strictly applied to junior staff and ignored for senior managers will not support disciplinary action when the company finally needs it.
How employment ends is governed by the contract and the law, and our employment agreement guide covers notice periods, buyouts, statutory notice in Delhi, retrenchment and restraints after leaving. The handbook’s job is to make the exit process orderly.
The exit policy should cover how a resignation is submitted and accepted; whether the company may relieve an employee early or ask for the notice to be served; handover of work, documents and devices; return of company property; an exit interview; the no-dues process and its timeline; payment of final wages within the two working days the Code on Wages requires; encashment of leave where applicable; gratuity and provident fund processing; and issue of the relieving letter and experience certificate.
Two practices cause most exit disputes. Withholding an experience certificate or relieving letter to pressure an employee into paying a disputed amount is common and is difficult to defend. And delaying final wages until a lengthy no-dues process is complete conflicts with the two-day requirement; where amounts are genuinely owed by the employee, they should be dealt with separately, not by holding back wages.
A policy that employees have not read, cannot read, or cannot find is a policy the employer will struggle to rely on.
Language: standing orders and certain statutory notices must be displayed in English and in the language understood by the majority of workers. For other policies, provide them in a language each employee can read; in much of North India that means a Hindi version alongside English, with a clause stating which prevails.
Acknowledgement: every employee should sign, physically or electronically, an acknowledgement that they have received, read and understood the handbook, at joining and after each significant revision. The acknowledgement should be kept with the personnel file. Where the handbook is on an intranet, the system should record acceptance and the version.
Rollout: a new or revised handbook should be introduced with a short explanation of the main points and changes, and managers should be briefed on the procedures they apply — leave approval, discipline, grievances. Statutory items — the POSH committee, the complaint officer, the grievance committee — should also be displayed at the workplace.
Consistency: the best-written policy is undermined by inconsistent application. A manager who approves leave outside the policy for one employee and refuses it for another creates both a grievance and evidence of arbitrariness.
A twenty-page handbook is enough for most companies under fifty people, provided it covers the right things. For a small office or startup in Delhi, the core is:
Everything else can be added as the company grows. What cannot wait is the statutory core, because the obligations apply from the moment the thresholds are crossed, not from the moment the company gets round to them.
A logistics technology company in Okhla has fifty employees: developers, operations staff, a small sales team and six warehouse supervisors. It has an eight-page “HR guidelines” document written when it had ten people, and a client audit is approaching.
The review finds that the guidelines give twelve days’ combined leave, which falls short of the statutory entitlement under the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act; that final settlement is promised in forty-five days; that there is a POSH policy but the Internal Committee has no external member and two of its members have left; that there is no equal opportunity policy and no transgender complaint officer; that the disciplinary process consists of one line saying “management may terminate for misconduct”; and that developers work from home three days a week with no written policy.
The new handbook brings leave to at least the statutory minimum, with the company’s own additional leave on top; fixes the pay date and commits to paying wages due on separation within two working days, with other dues processed separately; reconstitutes the Internal Committee with an external member and names it; adds an equal opportunity and non-discrimination policy with a liaison and a complaint officer; sets out a five-step disciplinary procedure; and adds IT, data privacy and hybrid work policies. Appointment letters are amended to refer to the handbook, and all fifty employees sign acknowledgements.
The client audit, which asks for the POSH annual report, the equal opportunity policy and the whistleblowing route, finds all three. None of the changes cost much. All of them would have been expensive to be without.
HR policy drafting is ₹4,500 and ordinarily takes 3 – 7 days. We draft a handbook tailored to your headcount, State and sector, or review and update the one you have.
| What is included | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Mapping the laws that apply to you | State shops law, labour codes and thresholds decide the content |
| Statutory policies built in | POSH link, equal opportunity, transgender complaint officer, grievance, vigil mechanism |
| Hours, leave and pay within the law | Never below the statutory minimum; two-day final wages |
| Code of conduct and misconduct list | The basis of any disciplinary action |
| Disciplinary and grievance procedures | Fair procedure is what makes a dismissal defensible |
| IT, data privacy and work-from-home policies | Modern risks, and DPDP obligations for employee data |
| Link to appointment letters and acknowledgement form | So the handbook can actually be relied on |
| Hindi version where needed | A policy staff cannot read is hard to enforce |
Nothing is payable in advance. PF, ESI and other registrations and returns are separate services. We do not act as your labour compliance auditor or represent you before authorities. Labour court and dispute proceedings are for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it.
Most HR handbooks are long on leave forms and short on the policies the law actually requires — equal opportunity, a transgender complaint officer, a current POSH committee, a grievance route, a fair disciplinary procedure, and wages paid within two working days of separation. Send us what you have, your headcount and your State. We will tell you what is missing, bring it within the law, and draft a handbook your managers can apply and your employees will acknowledge.
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