How to Develop and Implement a Policy

New Spotlight Article: When I call our employment law attorney with a question, the first question he asks me is, "Do you have a policy?" The second question is whether the policy is in the employee handbook. If the answer is no, and even when the answer is yes, he asks, "What has been your practice?" Then, he asks, assuming we had a policy, "Did the employee sign off on the policy and is the signoff sheet in the employee's file?"

Actually, I've heard these questions so many times that I ask myself the same questions daily as I interpret and fairly apply our policies. You want to have the necessary policies and procedures to ensure a safe, organized, convivial, empowering, nondiscriminatory work place. Yet, you do not want to write a policy for every exception to accepted and expected behavior. Find out how to develop a policy.

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