A Paper in Human Resource Development

The purpose of this paper is to document the process of a planned organizational change in a startup company through the efforts of an external consultant. This change effort focuses on the development of an employee handbook for an upstate New York Internet startup company and follows the Action Research model for change. Both the company and employee names have been changed to ensure anonymity. Research conducted for this task involved finding the applicable state and federal laws required of employee handbooks through an extensive literature review as well as inputting the policy and procedure information deemed important from ShopAround, Inc. into an actual handbook. Furthermore, this project demonstrates how the government regulations and the policies of a business owner may, at times, conflict.'