Ah, the incandescent joy of an elegantly written, smoothly communicated and ardently cherished (and thus religiously adhered to) Policy & Procedure. Nothing makes me happier. Nothing brings me more vindicated satisfaction. No amount of earthly bliss can hold a candle to surpassing it. I put it on the same level as rainbow sherbert and Shirley Temples and declining phone calls from people I don’t really want to talk to.
Have you ever looked around and thought, “Wow, it sure is hard getting things done in this organization!” Or, “Why does my co-worker keep trying to do my job while simultaneously not doing their job?” Or, “I don’t really know what my role is here and I’m not sure anyone else does either,” Or, “I wish I could fake my own death and move to the Bahamas because I’m sick of tense meetings in which nothing gets accomplished,” or, “Why does anyone’s feelings get hurt when I suggest doing things in a certain way,” or, “I wish I knew what the rules were for a situation like this,” or “I’m burned out, overtired, overworked, underfed, and underappreciated. Plus my boss always smells like five-day-old soup and I think I’m starting to develop a twitch under my left eye.”
Guess what the answer is to ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS? Every single one of them? Every single problem you’ve ever had or ever will have in a workplace can almost always be boiled down to this : It’s the Policies & Procedures. It is never not the Policies & Procedures. Either you don’t have a Policy & Procedure, or it’s too vague, or it isn’t being followed, or it hasn’t been updated since the Year of our Lord 1882. It may not be glamorous, it may not be sexy, it may not be fun, but it is – as a colleague of mine said the other day – how we get [redacted] done in the global West.
Or, to put it more eloquently - as one Twitter user did back in the day - “Charity doesn’t fix what policy created.” Put that on my tombstone. That’s the title of my memoirs. Say it louder for the people in the back. Etc.
And why are IM Professionals in particular so hyped about this particular subject? Rest assured that it is not just me.
The simplest answer would be along the lines of everything we do as IM Professionals is doomed to fail from the very start unless there are robust and well-written Policies & Procedures in place first. That’s where you ALWAYS start. If you do NOT start with that, hours of wasted company time and thousands of wasted dollars later – you’ll be right where you started before you hired an IM Professional. As in, your organization’s information is incomplete, missing, untrustworthy, everyone is sad and crying at their desks, and everyone is saving critical documents on their desktops. And you’re failing audits. And you’re probably about to get shut down. And you might go to jail.
But it’s not just IM work that depends on your Policies & Procedures. Although I am less-than-qualified to speak on this, I’m gonna say it anyway : The entire workplace culture & health of your organization will be sub-par and lacking if your Policies & Procedures are sub-par and lacking. It protects your employees, it protects you, it saves time and money and morale and dignity. If you don’t have good Policies & Procedures, you will not have a good workplace.
So how do we make sure that what we have is good, well-thought-out and put into practice?
1. Everyone’s Doing It = No One’s Doing It – designate a person to be in charge of Policy & Procedure review, updating, familiarization and compliance. Maybe even have a couple of people be in charge of that. But don’t just say, “Well, everyone’s supposed to do that,” because that just means that no one is, which is not the vibe we’re going for.
2. Perform a gap analysis. What kinds of Policies & Procedures is your type of organization supposed to have (google it) and what kinds of Policies & Procedures do you actually have? What’s missing?
3. Familiarization. In order to be compliant with your Policies & Procedures, you have to know what’s in them. And not just you, but EVERYONE. Everyone has to know what’s in there. This will be a pain in your arse, no doubt, and lots of grumbling will commence, but the end result is that everyone knows where the lines are. Everyone knows what’s their job and what isn’t their job. Everyone knows what their boss is allowed to do and what their boss is not allowed to do. Everyone is safer. Everyone is happier. Everyone can work together because they know how they’re expected to work together. All employees need to re-read all applicable Policies & Procedures once a year. And then quiz them. Make it fun! Throw candy at them! Or hand candy to them gently and smile benignly.
4. Update. Policies & Procedures should be updated, at minimum, once every five years. If it’s any longer than that, you must slap your own hand, and then get started at once. Make sure that the correct people are consulted and involved, otherwise you can get a situation where half the department is mad at the Policy & Procedure that was prematurely pushed into place. A lot of words that start with P in the last sentence.
5. Compliance. Spot check that people are actually complying with Policies & Procedures and have gentle but firm consequences for when they’re not.
6. Writing/Reviewing. Ask yourself these questions : Is this easy to understand? Is it applicable to how our organization operates today? Is it too long? Can it be shorter? Is it specific? Is it too vague? Is there anything missing? Is there anything in here that shouldn’t be in here? Is the information captured in an organized and efficient way?
I hope this was helpful and illuminating, or at the very least, not a total drag to read.
Do you know what the Policies & Procedures are in your organization? Do you know when they were last updated?
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