Policy Management For HR Nerds…Wait…Am I Allowed To Say That?

Policy management is an absolutely crucial tool for human resource departments.  Without it employees open themselves up to all kinds of potential lawsuits.  Too many employees pull the ignorance clause on their company’s and then the HR department is struggling to provide the necessary documentation to legal counsel.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there were over 88,000 charges reported to the EOCC in 2014.  The charges vary from main topics such as racial discrimination, sexual harassment, religion, retaliation and the list keeps going.  Human resource departments can be overwhelmed with creating, deploying, updating and tracking their policies.  Most human resource departments have a pretty standard approach with attempting to get these tasks accomplished.

1.  Create policies and submit for legal approval if necessary.
2. Have a policy packet ready for new hires
3. Have a system in place to somehow make sure the packets are hand delivered, emailed or given access to.
4. Have a system in place to document that the new employee has read and agrees to the terms of the policy.

For existing employees all of the above would be included along with:

1. Creating updates for policies and submitting for legal approval if necessary.
2. Deploying the updates to the entire company.
3. Have a system in place to document that everyone received the updates and will agree to the updated terms of the policy.

Rinse…Repeat….Fall Down

You can be so inundated with deploying policies that it gives you little time or resources to track policies.  This leads to employee lawsuits and other litigation because someone “didn’t get the memo”.  Hence the need for policy management software.  This should not be simply policy storage software.  The keyword is management.  Your policy management software should do the following:

1. Give every employee access to the company’s policies and procedures
2. Track and record that an employee has read the policy and has signed that they have read and will adhere to the policy terms and guidelines included
3. Report to multiple levels of management and the HR department when someone has not completed their required policy reading.
4. Archive existing policies
5. Automatically deploy updates to policies to the appropriate employees

Wait…Am I Allowed To Say That?

A well trained and well informed employee is a safe and successful employee which in turn makes the company as an entity profitable and allows for organic growth.  A well informed employee is less likely to say: ” Am I allowed to say that?”  Human resource departments that have the tools they need to track policies and procedures can in turn focus more on the training and positive reinforcement needed to make sure those policies stick.

Summary

Allow technology to assist your human resource department.  Policy management software is not an expense.  It’s an investment.  By investing in your employees you keep your company safe.  It has been statistically proven that when you invest in your employee it pays for itself immediately and companies can chart company growth specifically back to that investment.

Written by Jonathan Saar

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