10 Remote Employee Handbook Examples Worth Stealing From

Every employee handbook for remote employees needs to do more than list policies — it has to replace the hallway conversations, whiteboard sessions, and lunch-table culture that in-office teams take for granted. A strong remote handbook is the single source of truth your distributed team will actually reference.

Below are 10 companies that get it right. Each one takes a different approach to structure, tone, and transparency — so you can steal what fits and skip what doesn't.

An employee handbook gives guidance on company culture, rules and policies, best practices, and everything else they need to know related to working in or with the company. The underlying goal of the remote employee handbook is to create a common ground for all employees when it comes to company issues. You can learn more about the topic of communication in a remote setup in our guide “Your Strategy To Communicate Effectively With A Remote Team”.

The employee handbook can also be used as a reference for employees’ day-to-day. For example, it can help them understand your brand’s voice and vision to deliver better work or check up on a policy to ensure they abide by company guidelines.

An employee handbook is also a great way to communicate with new and existing employees. You can use it to give them the information they might not know, such as new requirements for taking extended times off or where they can go for support if it is needed for a specific topic.

What Is A Good Structure For A Remote Employee Handbook?

Every company has its own unique culture, style, and values. A company's remote employee handbook should reflect this personality. Your writing style is the first indicator of your company’s personality. Thus, you should write to reflect your values and brand. 

For instance, if a company's culture is fun and informal, its handbook may include more slang, creative copy, and conversational language. A company that represents traditional values might use more formal language and include more traditional business values. 

Potential candidates, new hires, and long-term employees should read through the remote employee handbook and feel stronger connected to the company's values, strategies, and roadmap by understanding how the company thinks and operates. 

To achieve this, many remote employee handbooks use the following structure

• Company origin story
• Mission & Vision
• Culture & Values
• Understanding of working remotely
• Benefits & Perks
• Legal
• Important company unique topics like diversity and inclusion, climate change involvement, security, travel, etc.

Once you know what to include, the delivery method matters too. If your team runs on Slack, Doozy lets you send onboarding flows, policy acknowledgments, and culture content directly in Slack — no separate portal or login. See how Doozy handles remote onboarding →

What Are Good Examples Of Remote Employee Handbooks?

If you don't have an employee handbook, you may be wondering what types of information you should include in your remote employee handbook. 

Here are 10 good examples of remote employee handbooks to help you get started.

1. GitLab - Guide to All-Remote

Company: GitLab Inc.

Link: Guide to All-Remote

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• The Remote Manifesto
• Why remote?
• Our long-term vision for remote work
• How we built our all-remote team
• Advantages and benefits
• Values
• Handbook-first documentation

One-sentence review:

With over 1,500 team members across 65+ countries, GitLab's handbook is arguably the gold standard for all-remote documentation — it features a 9-point Remote Manifesto, a 12-step self-assessment test for remote readiness, and has been the subject of case studies by Harvard Business School and INSEAD.

2. Remote.com - Remote Handbook

Company: Remote Technology, Inc.

Link: Remote Handbook

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• Values & Expectations
• Culture of Documentation
• Timezones & Working Async
• Benefits & Perks
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Engineering Rulebook
• Onboarding Buddies
• Anti-Harassment Policy

One-sentence review:

Hosted publicly on Notion, Remote's handbook is refreshingly transparent — it covers everything from their "no abbreviations or acronyms" policy to detailed engineering career paths, and even includes a dedicated "Remote for Ukraine" section showing how company values translate into real-world action.

3. Zapier - The Ultimate Guide to Remote Work

Company: Zapier Inc.

Link: The Ultimate Guide to Remote Work (PDF)

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• How we work
• Remote Life
• Benefits & Perks
• Our Commitment to Applicants
• Culture and Values at Zapier
• Zapier Guide to Remote Work
• Zapier Code of Conduct
• Working On Diversity and Inclusivity

One-sentence review:

Zapier goes beyond a standard handbook with a comprehensive PDF guide to remote work that doubles as a recruiting tool — it covers not just internal policies but also practical advice for anyone working remotely, from communication best practices to maintaining work-life balance. 

4. PostHog - Handbook

Company: PostHog, Inc.

Link: PostHog Handbook

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• Why does PostHog exist?
• How we get users
• How we make money
• Enduringly low prices
• A wide company with small teams
• What we value
• Not running out of money

One-sentence review:

PostHog's handbook reads like a founder's playbook — structured as 15 chapters covering everything from "why does PostHog exist?" to "not running out of money", it offers radical transparency on business strategy, compensation, and their unique approach of running a wide company with small, autonomous teams.

5. Dropbox - Virtual First Toolkit

Company: Dropbox, Inc.

Link: Virtual First Toolkit

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• Effectiveness Kit
• Teamwork Kit
• Communication Kit
• Well-being Kit
• Virtual First Manifesto

One-sentence review:

Dropbox coined the term "Virtual First" and built an open-source toolkit around it — rather than a traditional handbook, it offers practical, exercise-based kits covering effectiveness, teamwork, communication, and well-being, all guided by their manifesto principles like "go async by default" and "design for joy".

6. Trello - Employee Manual

Company: Trello inc. / Atlassian

Link: Employee Manual

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• On Your First Day
• Benefits
• Vacations Holidays, And Time Off
• Working Remotely For Trello
• Sexual Harassment Policy
• 2FA All The Things
• Brand Book

One-sentence review:

Trello's employee manual is uniquely built as a Trello board itself — a creative dogfooding of their own product that organises everything from first-day logistics to brand guidelines into cards and lists, making it both a practical reference and a live demonstration of how the tool can be used for team documentation.

7. Valve - New Employee Handbook

Company: Valve Corporation

Link: New Employee Handbook (PDF)

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• Welcome to Valve & Facts that Matter
• Your First Month
• Teams, Hours, and the Office
• Your Peers and Your Performance
• We Value "T-Shaped" People
• Where Will Your take Us

One-sentence review:

Valve's iconic handbook is a beautifully illustrated PDF that reflects their famously flat organisational structure — it tells new employees there are no bosses and no job assignments, encouraging them to find the most valuable project to work on, and even includes the memorable detail that all desks have wheels so you can physically move to join a new team.

8. Meta - The Meta Code of Conduct

Company: Meta Platforms, Inc.

Link: The Meta Code of Conduct (PDF)

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• Our principles are foundational to Meta
• Supporting each other
• Embrace diversity and inclusion
• Innovate responsibly
• Competing and Collaborating
• Engaging with the World
• Achieving our mission responsibly is everyone’s responsibility

One-sentence review:

Meta's Code of Conduct is a polished, formal document that reflects the scale of operating a global platform — it emphasises that "achieving our mission responsibly is everyone's responsibility" and covers everything from competing fairly to engaging with governments, making it a strong example of how large enterprises handle governance and ethics at scale.

9. People HR - The Employee Handbook

Company: People HR

Link: The Employee Handbook (PDF)

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• About People
• Your First Day
• Managing Your Work Pattern
• Reviewing Your Performance
• Where we're going
• The Learning Curve

One-sentence review:

People HR's handbook stands out for its school-themed, playful design — it uses report-card styling and humorous illustrations to walk new hires through performance reviews, work patterns, and company goals, proving that even HR documentation can be genuinely fun to read.

10. HubSpot - The HubSpot Culture Code

Company: HubSpot

Link: The HubSpot Culture Code

Excerpt from the Table of Content:

• What is culture
• HubSpot Culture Code Highlights
• Mission & Metrics
• We favor autonomy and accountability
• Results matter
• The best teams are diverse & inclusive teams
• We lean towards long-term impact

One-sentence review:

HubSpot's Culture Code is a mega slide deck that has been viewed over 5 million times and updated more than 25 times — it distils their culture into the HEART acronym (Humble, Empathetic, Adaptable, Remarkable, Transparent) and champions the idea that "culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing", with a no-door policy where everyone has access to anyone in the company.

Frequently asked questions

What should a remote employee handbook include?

A remote employee handbook should cover your company's mission, values, and culture alongside practical policies for communication, time zones, and async work. Include sections on benefits, security, equipment, and legal requirements like NDAs or data protection. It should also explain how performance is reviewed and where employees can go for support. The goal is a single reference that answers the most common questions a remote hire would have in their first 90 days.

How long should a remote employee handbook be?

There is no ideal page count — what matters is that employees can find answers quickly. Most effective handbooks range from 20 to 60 pages, though some like GitLab's run into hundreds of pages because they serve as full operational documentation. Keep core policies concise and link out to detailed resources where needed. A searchable, well-structured handbook will always outperform a shorter but disorganised one.

How is a remote employee handbook different from a regular one?

A remote handbook needs to cover topics that office-based handbooks can ignore, such as async communication norms, home-office setup expectations, and timezone etiquette. It also carries more weight because remote employees cannot absorb culture through osmosis — the handbook becomes the primary vehicle for transmitting how the company thinks and operates. Security guidance is typically more detailed too, since employees are accessing company systems from personal networks and devices.

Remote Employee Handbooks Are Important And There's No One-Fits-All Solution

Since a remote employee handbook is a necessary document for any remote working employee, it is important to get the structure right and ensure that the guidelines are relevant to your employees. 

As we've discovered, there is no one 'right way' to structure a remote employee handbook. However, what we have seen is that the best ones are personal, clear, and concise. They set out relevant expectations right from the start. 

Writing a remote employee handbook doesn't have to be a tedious process. It can actually be quite fun and fulfilling. If you're looking to make your business' policies more visible, straightforward, and consistent, then it's time to consider crafting a remote employee handbook.

If your team runs on Slack, Doozy can deliver your onboarding content directly to new hires — no extra tools or logins needed. Explore Doozy onboarding →