What is the difference between standing orders and an employee handbook?

Standing orders are a statutory instrument, certified by a Certifying Officer, that binds the employer and workmen on conditions of employment and discipline. A handbook is a policy document the employer writes and can change unilaterally. Where both exist and conflict, the certified standing orders prevail for the workmen they cover.

Can we dismiss for misconduct not listed in our standing orders?

It is considerably harder. Certified standing orders normally specify what constitutes misconduct, and disciplinary action for conduct outside that list invites the argument that the employee had no notice that the behaviour was punishable. This is why a thin or outdated list of misconduct quietly weakens every disciplinary case an employer brings.

How do we change our standing orders?

Modification generally requires agreement between the employer and the workmen or their union, or an application to the Certifying Officer after the prescribed period from the last certification. You cannot simply reissue them the way you would update an HR policy, which is why they need to be drafted with a decade in mind.

Standing Orders in India | Certified Service Rules

Q: Are standing orders compulsory?

The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 generally applies to industrial establishments employing one hundred or more workmen, though several states have reduced the threshold — in some cases to fifty. Where the Act applies, the employer must submit draft standing orders for certification, and the model standing orders apply in the interim.

Standing orders are the most consequential HR document that most Indian employers have never read. They are drafted once, certified, filed, and then relied on — usually for the first time — during a disciplinary matter twenty years later, when it turns out they do not cover the conduct in question.

What standing orders are

The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 requires certain industrial establishments to define, with precision, the conditions of employment of their workmen — and to have that definition certified by a statutory authority.

The purpose is notice. A workman should know in advance what the rules are, what counts as misconduct, and what the consequences are, rather than discovering them when they are applied.

The consequence for employers is that certified standing orders become the source of authority for disciplinary action. When you charge an employee with misconduct, you are charging them with breach of a specific provision. If the provision does not exist, or is vague, the charge is weak before the enquiry has begun.

When the Act applies

The Act generally applies to industrial establishments employing one hundred or more workmen on any day of the preceding twelve months. Several states have reduced the threshold — in some cases to fifty — so the position must be confirmed for each state in which you operate.

Where it applies, the employer must submit draft standing orders to the Certifying Officer within the prescribed period of the Act becoming applicable.

Model standing orders apply in the meantime

This is the point most employers miss.

Until your own standing orders are certified, the model standing orders prescribed under the Act apply to your establishment. You are not in a vacuum; you are governed by a default set you did not write and probably have not read.

The model orders are serviceable but generic. They were not drafted with your shift patterns, your safety requirements, your equipment, or the specific misconduct that actually occurs in your operation. An employer relying on them is disciplining against someone else’s list.

What standing orders must cover

The prescribed matters typically include:

Classification of workmen — permanent, probationer, badli, temporary, casual, apprentice. This matters far more than it appears: entitlements, notice and confirmation all follow classification.
Shift working, and how shifts are notified and changed
Attendance and late coming
Leave — conditions for applying, granting and refusing
Entry, search and access to the premises
Closure and reopening of sections, and temporary stoppages of work
Termination of employment, and notice on both sides
Suspension and dismissal for misconduct, and acts constituting misconduct
Means of redress for workmen against unfair treatment

That eighth item is where the value sits.

The list of misconduct

If you read only one part of your standing orders, read this one.

The certified list defines what you can discipline for. A list drafted in 1994 will typically cover insubordination, habitual absence, theft, damage to property, riotous behaviour, drunkenness and gambling on the premises.

What it will not cover, because nobody was thinking about it:

Misuse of company IT systems, email or internet
Disclosure of confidential information electronically
Harassment, and the interaction with the POSH Act
Social media conduct affecting the employer
Data protection breaches
Falsification of electronic records
Conflict of interest and undisclosed outside employment
Safety violations specific to current equipment and processes

An employer facing an employee who leaked confidential drawings from a work laptop, with standing orders that speak only of “theft of company property,” is in a materially weaker position than one whose list was updated.

Updating is difficult, which is exactly why it should be done thoughtfully rather than reactively. Modification generally requires agreement with the workmen or their union, or an application to the Certifying Officer after the prescribed period. You cannot amend them the way you would refresh an HR policy.

Certification, display and effect

Draft standing orders are submitted to the Certifying Officer
Workmen or their union are given an opportunity to object
The Certifying Officer considers fairness and reasonableness and certifies
Appeals lie against certification
Certified standing orders come into operation after the prescribed period
They must be prominently displayed in English and in the language understood by the majority of workmen

Display is not a formality. It goes to notice, which is the whole point of the instrument. An employer who cannot show the standing orders were displayed has weakened the argument that the workman knew the rule.

Standing orders, handbooks and contracts

Employers frequently maintain all three, drafted at different times by different people, saying different things.

The hierarchy in practice:

Certified standing orders prevail for the workmen they cover, on the matters they address
The contract of employment governs where standing orders do not apply — typically for staff who are not workmen
The handbook is policy. Useful, changeable, and the weakest of the three in a dispute unless properly incorporated

The failure mode is a handbook that describes a disciplinary process different from the certified standing orders. When they diverge, the employer following its own handbook is not following the instrument that binds it.

Who is a workman

Standing orders apply to workmen, and the definition turns on the nature of the duties actually performed, not the job title.

Broadly, persons employed in manual, skilled, unskilled, technical, operational or clerical work are workmen. Persons employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity, or in a supervisory capacity above a prescribed wage, are generally excluded.

The word “Manager” in a designation settles nothing. A “Shift Manager” who operates equipment and has no genuine authority to hire, discipline or commit the business may well be a workman. Employers who assume their entire supervisory layer sits outside the Act sometimes discover otherwise in a tribunal — at which point the whole disciplinary process they used becomes vulnerable.

Where employers go wrong

Relying on model standing orders without realising, because their own were never certified
A list of misconduct decades out of date, covering nothing digital
Standing orders not displayed, undermining notice
Handbook contradicting certified standing orders
Assuming supervisors are outside the Act on the basis of designation
Classification of workmen not maintained — probationers never confirmed, temporary workers engaged for years
Threshold assumed at one hundred where the state has reduced it

Practical checks

Do we have certified standing orders, or are we on the model orders?
When were they last certified, and does the list of misconduct cover digital conduct, harassment and data breaches?
Are they displayed, in the right languages, where workmen can actually read them?
Does our handbook contradict them anywhere?
Have we assessed which of our supervisory staff are workmen?
Are probationers being confirmed on time, and are “temporary” workers actually temporary?

The list of misconduct is the item to look at first. It is the one that silently decides whether your next disciplinary case is winnable.

Standing orders: the document that decides your disciplinary cases