Staff handbook for a construction company

A construction company's handbook is mostly about safety: the site rules the regulations expect every worker to follow, the drugs and alcohol testing that keeps people off plant when they are impaired, the driving and vehicle rules for a workforce that travels between sites, and the cards and qualifications that clients audit. It also has to work for a workforce that mixes employees, subcontractors and agency labour, and to deal with the hours, travel and weather that construction employment involves. I draft that handbook for the contractor for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Main contractors, subcontractors, house builders, groundworks, electrical, plumbing and other trade companies in England and Wales employing site and office staff.

What matters in a construction handbook

Site rules, safety and the policies the regulations expect

The handbook should contain the health and safety policy required under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the site rules and induction requirements under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, the personal protective equipment policy under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, manual handling under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992, the use of plant and equipment under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, working at height, accident and near miss reporting under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, the right and the duty to stop unsafe work, and the statement that breaches of safety rules are disciplinary matters up to gross misconduct.

Drugs, alcohol and testing on site

The handbook should contain a drugs and alcohol policy stating that staff must not be impaired at work, the testing the company operates (pre-employment, random, for cause and post-incident), the procedure and the laboratory, the consequences of a positive result or a refusal, the support offered for dependency, and the data protection basis for testing under the UK GDPR, because a construction company that tests without a policy and consent has a grievance and a data breach, and one that does not test has an impaired operator on a telehandler.

Driving, vehicles and plant

The handbook should contain a driving for work policy (licence checks, business insurance under the Road Traffic Act 1988, vehicle checks, the rules on company vans and private use, mobile phones, fines and damage within section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996), the rules for operating plant (training and authorisation, daily checks, the forklift and telehandler certificates), and the policy on travel between sites and whether it is paid; a van driven by an employee whose licence has lapsed is the company's uninsured liability, and the checks are the policy's purpose.

Qualifications, cards and training records

The handbook should set the cards and qualifications each role requires (construction skills cards, site management and supervisor safety training, first aid, asbestos awareness, plant certificates), the company's training programme and records, the employee's duty to maintain and renew qualifications and to report lapses, and the repayment policy for external training on a sliding scale with written consent; clients audit the records and the handbook is where the company tells staff that the cards are a condition of working on site.

Employed staff, subcontractors and agency labour

The handbook applies to employees, and the company's subcontractors are governed by their subcontracts (within the Construction Industry Scheme under the Finance Act 2004) and agency workers by the agency's terms and the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, but the site rules and safety policies apply to everyone on site and should be stated as site rules rather than employment policies; the handbook should explain to employees how the three groups work together, and should avoid imposing employment-style procedures on subcontractors, whose status is checked with HMRC's Check Employment Status for Tax tool rather than assumed.

Hours, travel, weather and the core policies

The handbook should set the working hours and site hours, the forty-eight hour opt-out signed separately, lay-off and short-time working where the contracts provide for it with guarantee pay under section 28 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the policy on bad weather and site closures, travel and subsistence, holiday around the industry's shutdowns with the notice regulation 15 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 requires, and the core policies (disciplinary and grievance under the Acas Code, equal opportunities and the duty to prevent sexual harassment under the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, sickness absence, flexible working for office staff under section 80F of the 1996 Act, data protection), non-contractual and acknowledged on issue.

What it costs

Staff handbook and core policies, £995. Five working days.

Employment contract, £595. One template you can reuse for a grade of staff. Five working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the employment contracts and handbooks page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A bespoke contract drafted for how you employ people
• Restrictive covenants drafted at a scope a court will uphold
• Confidentiality and intellectual property provisions that put ownership where it belongs
• The statutory particulars, so the document does the job section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires it to do
• Flexibility clauses where you genuinely need them, drafted to survive challenge
• Core policies: disciplinary, grievance, sickness absence, equal opportunities, data protection and, increasingly, AI use
• One round of amendments

What is not included

• Acting for employees
• Employment tribunal representation
• Payroll, pensions auto-enrolment and tax
• Immigration and sponsor licence work
• Day to day HR handling, disciplinaries, grievances and redundancy processes

Questions I am often asked

Can we drug test our site staff?

With a policy that states the testing, the procedure, the consequences and the data protection basis, and with consent, yes. The handbook contains the policy; testing without it is a grievance and a data breach.

Do the site rules apply to subcontractors?

The site rules and safety policies apply to everyone on site and are stated as site rules. The employment policies apply to employees only; imposing them on subcontractors undermines their status.

Can we send staff home unpaid when the weather stops work?

Only with a lay-off clause in the contract, and then with statutory guarantee pay. The handbook sets the bad weather policy consistently with the contracts.

Related guidance and services

• Employment contracts and handbooks, £995, the service this page describes
• Consultancy and contractor agreements, £595
• Employment contract for a site manager in construction

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: October 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.