Ingredients of a good organization wide HR Policy

HR Policy is a very important document for an organization’s HR Department.  It is the guidelines an organization will adopt,  of how an organization will manage its workforce.

We take a quick look at what constitutes an effective HR policy and what should be its essential components.

• The HR policy should serve the underlying purpose of managing its workforce and therefore contain guidelines which the organization will adopt.  It should be realistic in terms of any targets the organization is trying to achieve.
• It should contain clear and simple communication, with regard to relationship with its work force, examples would be conditions for employment, and terms between the organization and the workforce.
• It should contain information such as, values of your organization, information on your organization’s culture.  Information about workforce diversity, how your organization applies these aspects,  information on what is the path for training and development and other relevant information, which highlights your organization’s cultural aspects.
• Should contain information on leave policies, working hours, general conditions for employment and termination
• It should comply with local laws where your organization is based, your policy should abide by the local laws.  You should not have policies which conflict with local regulations.
• It should be regularly updated, at a minimum once in 12 months.
• It should have version control and clearly mention who is the owner of the policy as it is being updated, through out its life cycle within the organization.
• Lastly you should have a system which will help you enforce the policy in your organization.  HR Chronicle can help, give us a shout to find out.

Not all organization’s are equal, above is a simple highlight which will give you a starting point.  You can make a first draft then review in the first 3 months and so on until you get a good working HR policy.  Policy making is an ongoing effort, and you will never have a complete policy, except, that you will need to update to adapt to current situations.