What Is Your Policy?

In one of his routines, comedian Dimitri Martin repeats the old adage, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”  Then he adds, “My policy is: No stone throwing, regardless of housing situation.”

That’s a good policy, but as Dimitri points out, even the best of policies should have an exception.  His policy exception? “If you are trapped in a glass house and you have a stone, throw it!”

You Know Not to Throw Stones

It would be nice if policy setting was as clear and as easy as Mr. Martin’s example but setting good policies is difficult. Good policies are also important — they serve as guideposts, helping to keep your organization on track. You can learn a lot about an organization’s culture by reading its policies — how it feels about its employees and its customers, and where its priorities lie.

A quick reminder, though, that most organizations actually have two types of policies.  The first are the policies maintained by the Human Resources department.  These are necessary to ensure rules are applied fairly across the board, so certain employees are not treated more favorably in terms of attendance, discipline, reimbursement, or other matters.

Policy as a Goal

The other type of policy — the one we’re more interested in for this discussion — involves creating statements that serve as guidelines for executing the organization’s strategies and priorities. If “customer service” is a priority, company policies should articulate high-level customer service goals, such as answering calls promptly and resolving issues in a timely manner.  These high-level goal statements should then be fleshed out by department managers, with specific objectives that fulfill the overarching goals (for example, answering 95% of incoming customer service calls by the fourth ring, or resolving all customer questions or issues within one business day, or same-day shipping).

Good policies are usually developed by reflecting on how to operationalize strategies, set priorities, and address existing risks.  An overlooked step in some organizations is “clearly communicating company policies to team members”. Too frequently, we assume that the meanings and motives behind a policy are obvious.  It’s a mistake to assume anything, as those of us who have (or had) teenagers are reminded continually.  Clear communication about the logic and importance (success) of policies is a key to creating buy-in, which is a solid foundation for compliance.

Even more importantly, making sure employees understand policies thoroughly will also help them recognize when a situation calls for an exception. Being able to empower front line employees (especially those interacting with customers) is always a good thing, and the greatest impediment to good decision making is a lack of information. Training and communication on policies and policy development is one way to help alleviate this problem.

A Policy for Creating Policies?

So good policies are created by clearly stated company goals, and recall that our discussion of policy involves standards for achievement – not rules. Bad policies, on the other hand, can be a result of knee jerk reactions to a specific incident or occurrence. They are not well-thought out and are not based on fulfilling an over-arching strategy or priority. Some bad policies, however, are created because of misguided goals.

I read about a gourmet coffee chain recently, describing their policy of when the line of customers grew too long a staff member would take an order pad and pen out to the line and begin collecting orders from those in line and those queuing up. The odd thing about this policy was that it really didn’t get drinks to customers any faster. There were still the same number of cashiers ringing up sales, and the same number of baristas making the drinks. In fact, one could argue it actually slowed the process down.

But it turns out the goal of this policy was not to reduce the wait for drinks. The real goal of the policy was to make customers coming in and getting in line to feel obligated to stay and purchase the drink. Having placed an order, customers were much less likely to ditch the long line and go somewhere else. How is that for a customer focus?

A useful policy here should be to serve drinks fast enough to satisfy customers, not to lay a guilt trip on customers to keep them from leaving (happy or unhappy). I can’t help but think that if as much thought and effort was put into to creating the proper policy (backed by processes) to deliver drinks satisfactorily during a rush as was put into playing mind games with customers, a win-win situation would be created for customer and company. As is, this policy only benefited the company at the expense of the customer. While such policies might create a short term benefit, over the long haul it alienates customers and creates cynical employees.

So the question isn’t really just “what is your policy,” but “why is it your policy” as well. What is being accomplished? Who benefits? Who suffers? What message does it send? What direction does it take the organization? What does it say about your organization?

When it comes to understanding why, Dimitri Martin might say, “Because throwing stones isn’t nice and someone could get hurt.” Our goal should be to create policies that make as much sense.

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Posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 under Writing Policies and Procedures

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Originally published by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title What Is Your Policy?.

This and more articles like this can be found at www.bizmanualz.com. This article may be reprinted freely as long as this resource box is left intact.