Employee policy software is a great tool for your business. Since every business, from stores to doctor's offices, creates and distributes employee manuals, having a software program that can help you create policy and procedure manuals and documents will save you time and energy.

You can find HR policy software to create many different types of employee manuals and documents. But before you start buying these programs, make sure you know what kinds of policies and procedures your business requires.

1. The main policy software your business will need is one for creating employee manuals.

2. You'll also want employee policy software for creating and updating employee policies not included in the manual, for creating workplace policies and for creating corporate policies.

3. You should also implement a software policy that tells your employees what they can and can't download from the Internet.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find HR policy software for creating your employee manuals

Not all businesses are the same, and neither are the different types of software for creating HR policies. With the many providers of employee policy software, you'll want to find the right one for your business that will allow you to create employee manuals with all of your policies and procedures.

I recommend: JIAN offers Employee Manual Builder 5, which allows you to quickly and easily produce a comprehensive and up-to-date HR policy and procedure employee manual for your company. TemplateZone has Office Policy Manual, an all-in-one program you can use in Microsoft Word to create customized employee manuals.

Find employee policy software for your business

Employee manuals are not the only policies you'll be creating for your business and your employees. You'll also want software for creating other employee policies, workplace policy software and corporate policy software.

I recommend: PolicyTech sells Policy and Procedure Manager, a software system for creating and approving policies quickly, finding and accessing them promptly, notifying your staff of new policies and keeping track of all of your policies and who's received them. People-Trak offers different HR software packages for your business, such as Personnel Management, COBRA Administration, Time and Attendance, Position Management and Performance Reviews.

Create a software policy

With all of the available software your employees can access and download from the Internet, you'll want to incorporate a software policy, which states what software employees can and can't download. What programs are allowed to be downloaded and which ones blocked should be a corporate decision, and stated clearly in a written policy, which can be included in your Employee Handbook. You can also implement a software restriction policy directly on to your network.

I recommend: WindowsNetworking.com walks you through a Windows XP software restriction policy activated from the Windows XP Control Panel. Microsoft details software restriction policies in Windows Server 2003, which is activated from your computer's Administrative Tools.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  You may also want to use employee procedure software to create separate procedure manuals for the different departments in your business.