Fatal Errors Employers Make When Updating Employee Handbooks that Can Be a Legal Landmine Learn What Policies are Mandated for 2026
Learn the key employee handbook issues for 2026, what the NLRB memorandum means for your policies, and how to draft, audit and implement handbooks that reduce legal risk.
Speaker
Ronald L. Adler
HR consultant and HR auditing expert · Laurdan Associates Inc. · 42 years in HR consulting
Overview
Employee handbooks are no longer just a siloed HR document listing work rules and benefits. This 90-minute employee handbook compliance webinar looks at how handbook policies have become part of an organization-wide management process that supports business goals, adds value to human capital and limits legal risk.
To make policies work, organizations need better business, operational and legal intelligence, more stakeholder input, new metrics for handbook performance and internal controls that flag process failures. Handbooks are also expected to support the employment brand, recruitment and retention, morale and consistent enforcement of rules.
The session covers key 2026 handbook issues, the NLRB memorandum, critical policies, handbook audits and the use of AI.
Why attend: Handbooks set out what employers expect of employees and what employees can expect in return. That creates both opportunity and risk: a poorly drafted handbook can create promises you never meant to make, raise employment liabilities and, as an NLRB General Counsel memorandum notes, violate the law by chilling employee activity. Claims are increasingly brought at the state and local level. The webinar suits HR professionals, risk managers, internal auditors, in-house counsel, CFOs, CEOs and management consultants.
What’s covered
- Key employee handbook issues in 2026
- A review of the NLRB memorandum on employee handbooks
- Reducing the gap between issuing a policy and implementing it effectively
- The basics of employee handbook development
- The expanding purposes and scope of employee handbooks
- The dimensions of critical handbook policies
- A framework for employee handbook audits
- The use of AI
Who should attend
What you get
About the speaker
Ronald L. Adler, president of Laurdan Associates Inc. has 42 years of HR consulting experience and has served as a consulting expert on work force, workplace, and HR management issues for The Wall Street Journal, HRMagazine, and other publications and newspapers across the country. Mr. Adler's research findings have been used by the Federal Reserve Board, the EEOC, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), insurers, and international organizations.
Mr. Adler is a frequent lecturer and author on HR management, employment practices, and UI issues. Mr. Adler is the author and editor of the Employment-Labor Law Audit (ELLA), the internationally recognized HR auditing and employment practices liability risk assessment process.
Mr. Adler is an adjunct professor at Villanova University where teaches a graduate level course in HR Auditing. Mr. Adler is also a certified instructor for The Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (CPCU) Society on employment practices liability and HR auditing issues and has conducted continuing education courses for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on HR management and HR auditing topics. Additionally Mr. Adler has served as an adjunct instructor at the Baltimore City Community College on workplace diversity and sexual harassment.
Mr. Adler is an appointee to State of Maryland's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Oversight Committee and previously served as an appointee to the State's UI Funding Task Force, the UI Advisory Committee, and the state's Workforce Training Initiative. Mr. Adler has served as a moderator at the State of Maryland's Annual Human Relations Conference and at the state's Annual Small Business Conference.
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