Definition:
The policy is a set of ideas or plans of what to do in a particular situation that has been agreed to officially by a group of people. This was the dictionary definition.
But in our business definition, we can define the policy as A plan which formally briefs with an inclusion of the organizational goals, general benefits, acceptable procedures, and objectives to certain areas of the subject are known as a policy.
From each policy, you can retrieve many procedures related to the specific situation and the action needed
Types of Policy you need in your Organization:
Every organization has a unique situation and what can be applied of policy in other places can’t be followed in such an organization, therefore you need to know the nature of the organization’s activities, cultures, workplace, etc… & then you can specify the combination of policies you need. In other word Policies, Types varies from workplace to another.
Importance of Policy:
→Providing Framework of an organizational behaviour inside the workplace.
→Assisting decision-maker in the regular specific routine situation by providing guidelines for that.
→Providing a consistent and clear response across the company in dealing with situations.
→Demonstrating your good faith that Employees will be treated fairly and equally.
→Providing an accepted tool for dealing with complaints and misunderstandings.
→Giving a clear framework for the delegation of decision-making;
→Providing a means of communicating information to new employees.
The A/M advantages are not delimited but also adding more as per each organization situation which varies from one to another.
Factors to be considered when writing a policy.
→ Double-check if there is an existing policy for the same topic or not.
In case if there is no policy for the chosen topic you can start directly to write your desired policy, and in case you found out there is an existing policy you need to double-check and update accordingly to be completely aligned with your topic and at then you need to re versioned your policy with the old one with the updates done.
→ Write your policy by sharing the concerned parties.
In other words, do not go in writing a policy in a sole mode and it is reflecting your only opinion, you need to share all concerned parties to reflect all opinions.
→ Use easy language and definitions.
Do not go for hard vocabulary can’t either easy understanding or misunderstanding & generalize the position with no person’s names, and use generic department mail account, not an employee mail.
→ Make it flexible to be changed from time to time.
The policy should be flexible as per law change and sometimes change of other factors either internal or external.
→ Make a record of versions of updates with dates and a list of approval of concerned parties.
As a type of a historical record when you need to update the policy make indexing with versions and a list of key persons who approved it
Policy Sections.
1-Policy Title.
The title should reflect and describe the content of the policy.
2-Purpose.
Which explaining the goal of the policy.
3-Scope.
Is it applied to a specific department or for the entire organization and specific types of people inside or outside the organization.
4-Statement.
The rule of the policy to be communicated.
5-Procedures & Responsibilities.
Each policy has its own procedures and responsibilities which describing how the policy can be implemented & the responsibilities of this implementation.
6-Definitions.
Sometimes there are some terms to be defined to make it very clear enough when reading & understanding the policy
7-Questions.
In this section, you need to insert the name of the position who can answer any questions and clear any queries.
8-References.
Any supporting document related to the policy, law article, other policy.
9-Effective date.
The date which the policy come to be effective and as well the date of each revision.
10-Review Date
The date on which the policy will be reviewed.
11-Approval.
Who approved the policy with dates and the date for the last approval.
The A/M Sections is not limited but you can add more section as per the need of your organization nature and the need to make the policy easy for understanding.
The word about policy is endless as the change either in writing rules or the needs of the organization and its vary as per the type of Policy is for HR or other department policy. But when you feeling the policy is fine you can compile it in the employee handbook if it should be public and communicate with the employees and concerned parties.
