Developing appropriate policies to aid good practice
With new laws, new initiatives and new approaches coming along all the time, an organisation needs to be flexible when it comes to policy development. That is, the days when a policy could be established and simply left as a permanent basis for practice are long since gone. In these less certain times, it is important that policy makers in organisations have a clear grasp of what their policies are aiming to achieve and whether they are in effect being successful in achieving those aims. An organisation which has only 'paper policies' which bear little or no relation to what actually happens in practice, leave themselves open to a number of problems. Policy should be an aid to good practice, not an obstacle to it, or at best an irrelevance.
Policy development is a skilled job, the importance of which is often underestimated. Managers can therefore often benefit from the assistance of an external consultant who is able to bring not only an understanding of policy issues in organisations in general but also examples of specific policy developments in particular organisations, that is, an external consultant can bring both breadth and depth of knowledge in relation to policy development in particular fields. It is important that an external consultant should not be asked to simply provide policies for organisation as this is likely to contribute to the problems of policies not connecting with actual practice. It is essential that policies should be 'owned' by the organisation concerned. The role of the consultant is therefore not one of providing a short cut to policy development but rather as an aid and source of support for the organisation in tackling the challenge of developing relevant worthwhile and helpful policies.
In these increasingly litigious times, it is important that organisations have clear and realistic policies that address particular issues so that in the event of complaint being made or a problem arising, managers are in a stronger position to demonstrate that they have done what is required of them as good employers.
Avenue Consulting Ltd can provide assistance in developing new policies and/or reviewing and evaluating existing ones. If you feel that our input may be of benefit to you, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
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