Maya Singh

Rewrote all our HR policies in plain English. Finally, people actually read them.

Our employee handbook was 47 pages of legal language that nobody read. I know nobody read it because I'd been there 6 years and had never read all of it myself. I decided to rewrite the whole thing in plain English. Just me and Claude, over about three weeks of evenings. The process: I'd paste a section of the existing policy and ask Claude to rewrite it in plain language — clear, direct, no jargon, under a page. I'd review it against the legal requirements, check with our employment lawyer for anything that needed staying precise, and finalise. The new handbook is 22 pages. It includes a "what this means for you" box at the start of each policy section. Our onboarding survey now asks if new employees found the handbook useful. Before: 23% said yes. After: 71%. People are actually reading it. That means they know their entitlements, their obligations, and what to do if something goes wrong. That's better for them and better for us.