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Learn what to include in an effective employee handbook for your small business. A well-crafted handbook acts as a roadmap for your team — outlining how your business operates, what’s expected of employees, and what they can expect in return. It covers everything from company policies and workplace culture to benefits, resources, and how to handle concerns.
This guide will help you protect your business and set clear expectations for your employees by walking you through the purpose of a handbook, the steps to create one, and the key policies to consider including.
Shared Success, a project of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, shows how building better jobs can simultaneously uplift workers while also driving small business success.
About the Economic Opportunities Program
The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy.
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Video — Shared Success, a project of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, is grounded in the understanding that building better jobs and building stronger businesses go hand in hand.
This infographic shares statistics on impact of the Economic Opportunities Program’s Shared Success demonstration. Dive into a detailed breakdown of the diverse businesses and entrepreneurs involved in this work.
This brief shares key lessons and takeaways that could be used to implement internal job quality practices to strengthen CDFIs and other small business support organizations.
Supporting small business owners in understanding and acting on workers’ perspectives is a promising practice for simultaneously advancing job quality and small business development organizations’ missions to promote economic resilience.
Comprehensive findings from qualitative and quantitative research on participating small business owners and workers conducted at the end of the demonstration will be released in spring 2026.
This endline evaluation of the Shared Success demonstration aims to understand the impact of the work of the 11 community lenders who integrated job quality programming into their small business support services.
