We continue to get feed-back from auditors that they’ll go into an organisation and while standing in reception, they’ll be reading the policy that doesn’t reflect the organisation.
In this video I’m going to present 4 key points on how to make sure that your policies reflect your organisation and that they satisfy the requirements of the standards you’re addressing.
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1. Ensure it reflects your organisation.
It’s really a bad look if you’ve copied a policy from somebody else and it’s still got the name of another company, or it doesn’t reflect what you do. If we use PKP as an example, our policy would say that we consult to organisations and assist them in their compliance requirements.
2. Ensure the policy is dated and signed by current management
There's nothing worse than having a 10-year-old policy hanging on the wall. They should be reviewed at Management review as well, that way you can ensure that they’re current and they can be reissued, be it every 3 years, every year, whatever suits.
3. The content should align to your objectives
Once again, if we use PKP as an example, we want to assist our clients to achieve certification in their compliance system, so that is stated in our policy. Then our objective is to have 100% of our clients certified through their systems that we have assisted them with.
4. Communicate the policy to interested parties
Examples of interested parties may be;
Customers
Regulators
Employees
Suppliers
It is important that all your staff are aware of what the policy is. That can be part of their induction training and ongoing training as well, make sure they sign off against the policy.
If you follow these 4 steps, you should be on the way to creating an effective policy that reflects your organisation. Let me know if you implement these steps.