Policies Need to Fit Your Culture

Does the level and depth of your organization’s policies and the tone they are written in reflect your corporate culture? More established and traditional organizations often have a very structured and detailed policy framework with a formal tone, whereas a startup tends to have more loosely structured policies and a more informal tone in their writing.

When policies and cultures fail to align, it can affect the overall operations, efficiency, and harmony of your organization. Policies that are aligned to culture, however, can help your organization leverage its resources and culture to achieve its business objectives more effectively. As a result, your organization needs to update its policies and employee handbook to more adequately bed aligned with your corporate culture.

Policies need to reflect:

• Organizational Values. Instituting strong organizational values that can withstand the test of time is key in maintaining the strength of your organization. Any discrepancy between the values that are espoused and the actual policies within your organization will often be noticed, and it could have negative repercussions and effects on operations and conduct.
• Employee Attitudes. Your organizations values and policies need to be in tune with what matters most to the employees and individuals that make up the organization. Doing so creates a better employee experience and can improve efficiency and employee investment into policies and your organization.
• Norms of Behavior. Every organization needs to outline rules as well as acceptable and non-acceptable conduct and behavior in the workplace. This is key in creating harmony, safety, compliance, and an optimized environment for employee happiness and productivity, especially if properly aligned to your organization’s unique culture.

All of this needs to be clearly defined in your overall policy framework, including the policies on the development of further policies, style and writing guide, and the templates.