You say the word policy, and there’s an inevitable groan, even if it’s in your own head! Policy conjures up the image of pages of dry, boring text. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be short and to the point. It can be visual and engaging.
Policies and procedures are typically controls to mitigate risks e.g., IT policies to warn employees against sharing passwords, HR policies to state expected rules of behaviour, etc.
Given the large target audience i.e., usually all employees, contractors, suppliers, etc, the policy needs to be clear and easily understood. Enter the review process!
Policy revisions get a bad rep for their lengthy timeline, multiple edits, arguments over wordsmithing, and in the end sheer policy fatigue. Not to mention, the struggle of reading the multiple comments and track changes!
Here are some lessons I learned over the years to make Policy writing and revision just that little bit easier!
- If you don’t have a system yet, define your Policy process.
- Digitise and use an automated workflow.
- Gather input from stakeholders (Legal, Risk, Policy Owner) upfront before you start writing. It may not be a policy but guidelines or a procedure that’s required. Figure out and agree on the intent of the policy before you spend weeks writing something that needs to be changed.
- Iterate and revise, but don’t spend months rewriting, otherwise before you know it you’ve hit the next revision cycle.
This a simple process that you can easily tailor to your organisation to streamline your policy revision timelines and process.
