Every company has policies for dealing with common and not so common occurrences; pay day is Wednesday, warrantee requests will be complete in 5 days, vacations must be requested 30 days in advance. Most of these policies develop over time to match the needs of the stakeholders. If you are a plumber taking five days to respond to a service request on a leaking toilet is likely to cast you referrals.
When we were building homes our warrantee clearly stated that if there was an emergency we would respond immediately. To non-emergency we would respond in the normal course of business. Then we defined a typical emergency. For example if a home buyer lost the water service to their house it was an emergency. If only one sink or toilet was out of service it was not an emergency and our plumber would respond the next normal work day.
I this case the policy was written and could be understood by our employees and our customers.
Some policies develop over time and become ingrained in the company culture to the point you may believe they do not need to be written. It was our habit – not policy - that paychecks would be distributed every other Friday for the work performed the previous two weeks. Over time the bookkeeper developed the habit of distributing the pay checks on Wednesday two days early because they were completed and handing them out early got them off her desk.
There came a time when we got particularly busy and the bookkeeper was unable to distribute the checks until the normal day. I received several complaints from newer employees about “late” paychecks. The policy had been clear to me and the bookkeeper but not to our employees.
Looking at the definition of policy you want to make sure the policies are created by an individual - you - and not the social group – your employees. Lacking a clear written policy your employees with create their own based on observation,
The point here is if it is not in writing and not available to the stakeholders then it is not a policy and lacking a documented company policy the employee will create their own based on their perceptions.
All original content ©Thomas Robinson 2010
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