Earlier in the week a few girls in the office and I were throwing around some blog ideas and when Mel mentioned “Why Policies Matter”, it stuck. It stuck because I’m a stickler for policies, in fact, I love them! Not everyone cares about policies, not everyone follows policies, but in my opinion they are the glue that holds a company together.

Policies, simply defined, are guidelines adopted by a company that are usually written and put into place to inform a group of people on how to handle certain situations. When I first started as a Recruiter at Plan A, I was the first and only Recruiter who had ever worked for the company. Since there were no real instructions or guidelines to follow, I created the position as I went along. I created policies on a daily basis for myself to follow, but now that I have a Recruiter and a Student Liaison Officer working with me and I have moved into the ‘management role’ for the Recruitment department, it is an important aspect of my job to create policies and procedures when needed and to ensure that they are understood and followed on a daily basis.

Every time I create and implement a new policy into the department, I notice that it makes my job much easier. It helps with training new staff when they join our team, it provides answers for staff quickly, and it eliminates them from having to come to me every time they have a question.

I recently read an article that stated, “A company without policies is a company without control”. This really resonated with me because it’s exactly why I love policies as much as I do! Without policies, the culture within the organization can turn into something completely unintended. Policies help keep the control within the departments in the hands of the managers and supervisors and it eliminates any sort of question or argument when attempting to find a solution when a situation arises. The guidelines put in place are what keep the employees in the various departments following the same ‘rules’ and speaking the same language; they set a standard for all staff to follow. If something happens and the company does not have a policy outlining how to deal with the situation, the next step should always be to put a policy in place for the future.

What most companies find difficult about implementing policies is actually writing the policy and ensuring that it makes sense. Do you find it difficult to write an effective policy? Stay tuned for next week’s post about how to quickly and easily write an effective policy! Thanks for reading! Happy Wednesday!