Policy 101

Policy Does Not Need to Be Scary:

People get too bunched up when you talk about “Policy”, and they don’t need to. Chances are your organization has unwritten policies and processes in place already. There are already established behaviors that every company does to protect themselves and their employees. 

The process of writing “Policy” is just capturing that information and solidifying it into a framework that supports the existing environment. 

Why Policy is written:

Policies are created to help protect the company from risks. Risks can be financial, environmental, safety related, and reputational. Some risks are accepted in the normal course of business, and some require the diligence that corporate policies bring. 

Policies are not written for individual problems; they are more general to provide the standards of behavior for being a part of the organization. Individual problems should be handled by the various levels of leadership and the Employee Engagement Business Unit. 

A policy should not replace a conversation if an issue arises. If the leaders are to be accountable for enforcing the policies, then they should properly be equipped to do so with adequate training and resources for when things get tricky. 

Essential Considerations When Writing Policy:

Policies should reflect what a company can do, and enforce, at that moment in time. A general assumption people make when writing for policy is that more is better. This is not the case. Policy should be applicable to all people in an organization and to do that it has to be general. Policies should communicate the ideas that everyone must do to ensure the organization thrives. As for enforcement, if you have no way to check compliance and enforce a policy requirement then there is no point in putting it in. 

People have short attention spans, especially for policy. It is a safe bet that most people will not read beyond the first page so don’t bury the good stuff. If there is a statement that must be paid attention to, put it right out in front so that even if they read nothing else, they will have read that. That’s not to say the other information isn’t important, it is, and it can also be communicated in a different way to those who care to know more. 

Policies must be written in assertive and firm language. Therefore, we use “must” in the statements rather than should. Should implies wiggle room and there is no wiggle room at the corporate level. It is also important to consider that even though the policies are values based, that there needs to be logic to them. As the executive, you can write whatever policies you want, but getting people to accept and comply with them is a whole new thing. Writing policies that both support a shared sense of values and are logical tend to ease acceptance. 

Try to stay away from departmental jargon. If you start tossing out words like “metadata” and “IFRS” you will automatically exclude people who don’t know what it means or what it refers to and they will stop paying attention.

Examples:

Good:
At our company, we must report our financial position in a way that is material, relevant and responsible.

Bad:

At our company, we report our financial position by compiling our cash accounts from various subsidiary holdings and balancing them against a general ledger while accounting for changes in the currency market as per the IFRS.

The first statement speaks to different listeners in different ways. Those in the Accounting field will understand their role in upholding this policy and what they need to do to carry on. The guy in the wire pulling truck will read it, accept it, and move on. Bonus, if the wire pulling guy wants to know more about his role in the accounting hierarchy you can point to his submitting his timesheets on time as upholding that policy.

The second statement is too technical and a little bit daunting. Also, there is no call to action, who does the “we” refer to in the statement? 

Ask Yourself Who Are We? 

Companies have a voice and a tone that it carries throughout its brand. It can be found in the way a company communicates externally, but also in the way ideas and concerns are conveyed internally. When writing policy, it is important to keep your audience in mind and write in language that can’t be mistaken as condescending or patriarchal. This is especially important when writing a values-based suite of policies. You can’t say that you value Community and then write exclusionary policies designed to silo certain groups who may not be performing up to the expectations. 

In conclusion

Assume that you will be asked to defend your policies to both the internal stakeholders and external ones. Can you stand in front of them and say that you not only believe in them but that you are also embodying them? If you can’t or don’t want to then it might not be a good policy. 

TL:DR

Policy is not scary; you’re already living it, now speak it.

People have short attention spans, don’t bury the headline

Keep it simple and accessible.