Risk and Improvement

In today’s fast-paced environment, staying effective means keeping every aspect of your operations up to date – especially your policies.

Outdated policies can lead to more than inefficiencies; they can result in significant financial, reputational, and operational risks. This is particularly important for any business and agency when resources are limited, and trust is paramount. Let’s explore the risks of outdated policies and why proactive policy management is essential for every organization.

Financial Risks: The Hidden Costs of Outdated Policies

One of the most immediate consequences of outdated policies is non-compliance with laws and regulations. Regulatory frameworks evolve regularly, and failure to keep policies aligned can result in:

• Hefty Fines and Penalties: Community and not-for-profit agencies are not immune to regulatory oversight. Non-compliance with laws such as health and safety regulations, privacy law, or employment standards can lead to fines and penalties that strain already tight budgets.

Example: In Aotearoa, failure to comply with employment law can lead to personal grievance action and ultimately to financial sanctions; non-compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 can lead to fines of up to $600,000 for individuals or $3 million for organisations.

• Funding Risks:  If you’re dependent on government or philanthropic funding, non-compliance or poor policy management can jeopardise funding agreements.

Example: Contracts with government agencies to provide services typically require compliance with regulatory standards like the Social Sector Accreditation Standards, Ngā Paerewa Health and Disability Service Standards. If you’re a business, iwi or community agency contracted to provide community housing, you must comply with the Performance Standards….. If you don’t keep your policies updated, this can lead to non-compliance with these standards and ultimately, result in loss of funding. t

• Increased Insurance Premiums: Non-compliance or repeated claims stemming from inadequate policies can raise insurance costs, which can be particularly burdensome for not-for-profits.

Reputational Risks: Outdated Policies Damage Trust

For all businesses and agencies, a good reputation is important. Outdated policies can jeopardise this and severely damage trust among stakeholders, current and potential clients, donors, and the public:

• Negative Publicity: A privacy breach or safety violation resulting from an outdated policy can lead to negative media coverage, harming your organisation’s credibility.
• Loss of Stakeholder Confidence: Funders, partners, whānau and community expect organisations and businesses want to deal with creditable and trustworthy organisations. Outdated policies can signal negligence and erode trust and confidence of staff and actual and potential clients, partners  and funders.
• Impact on  Volunteer Engagement: Community agencies often rely heavily on volunteers. However, volunteers may hesitate to support organisations with poor policy management, perceiving it as disorganized or unsafe.

Operational Risks: Efficiency Suffers Without Updated Policies

Outdated policies can hinder day-to-day operations, leading to inefficiencies and disruptions:

• Confusion Among Staff and Volunteers: Policies that are unclear or out of sync with current practices create confusion and inconsistent application.
• Delays in Decision-Making: Outdated policies may not address new challenges or scenarios, slowing decision-making processes. (See Good Decisions need Good Policies.)
• Increased Errors: When policies fail to reflect current best practices or technological advancements, errors are more likely, impacting service delivery.

The Benefits of Updating Policies

Keeping policies current isn’t just about avoiding risks; it’s about empowering your organisation and business to succeed. Updated policies:

• Enhance Compliance: Proactively address legal and regulatory requirements.
• Improve Efficiency: Provide clear guidance to employees and volunteers, reducing confusion and errors.
• Build Resilience: Prepare your organisation to adapt to changes and challenges effectively.

Best Ways to Manage These Risks

Effectively managing the risks associated with outdated policies requires a proactive and systematic approach. Here are some best practices:

• Schedule Regular Policy Reviews: Set a timeline to review each policy, typically annually or whenever major regulatory updates occur.
• Leverage Technology: Join The Policy Place online policy service for policies that support your compliance and are regularly reviewed and updated for legal and other regulatory changes.  With your policies taken care of, you can focus on policy implementation (Check out the benefits here.).
• Engage Diverse Stakeholders: Gather and include input and feedback from your stakeholders like clients, kaimahi/staff and community partners when updating your policies and seek out cultural and industry expertise in areas it is needed.
• Provide Ongoing Training: Ensure all your kaimahi and volunteers are trained and have a good understanding of your policies and how to access them. You can’t rely on your policies and procedures with staff and expect compliance if they don’t know about them!
• Conduct Audits: Arrange for checks and audits of case files and other documentation to ensure that policies are complied with. Where there is non-compliance, address it and strategise to prevent recurrence.
• Document and Communicate Updates: Clearly document any changes to policies and communicate them effectively across your organisation to avoid confusion. As a member of  The Policy Place we keep your policies updated and keep you informed about updates.

How We Can Help with Policy Management

At The Policy Place we specialise in keeping your policies compliant, relevant, and effective. Our services include:

• Policy Development: We provide core policy content to support agencies to comply with the law and other regulations and to meet good sector and industry practice.
• Policy Monitoring & Review: We ensure that clients keep up with legislative and other regulatory changes.
• Comprehensive Policy Audits: Identify gaps and areas for improvement.

Whether you’re a business, a not-for-profit or other organisation, don’t let outdated policies hold you back. Contact us today to learn how we can help you minimize risks and maximize operational success.

At The Policy Place, we are committed to regularly reviewing and updating our online policies to ensure they meet the highest standards and reflect the latest developments in the field. Our next review will focus on policies related to abuse, child protection, and safeguarding vulnerable adults.

These policies are crucial for compliance with the Social Sector Accreditation Standards, Health and Disability Standards, and legislation such as the Children’s Act 2014.

Our Review Process

When we review and update our online policies, we take into account feedback from our members, as well as current laws, regulations, and best practice codes. This comprehensive approach ensures that our policies are not only compliant but also practical and effective for our diverse membership.

In the upcoming review, we will be incorporating two significant developments: the Specialist Family Violence Organisation Standards and the Recommendations of the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care. These updates are essential to ensure our policies remain relevant and effective in addressing the needs of those we serve.

The Importance of Specialist Family Violence Organisation Standards

The Specialist Family Violence Organisation Standards (“the Standards”) are a set of comprehensive guidelines developed as part of Te Aorerekura: The National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence. These standards aim to guide consistent and high-quality practice among organizations providing services to individuals affected by family and sexual violence.

Key Features of the Standards

The Standards reflect extensive collaboration and insights from professionals in the family violence and sexual violence sectors, tangata whenua, community representatives, agencies, and victim-survivors. For organisations like ours, they provide a valuable framework for revising and updating policies and procedures. Key criteria include:

• Recognition of various forms of family violence: Including child abuse, elder abuse, and sexual violence, and the differing impacts based on cultural, gender, and care dynamics.
• Ensuring safety and autonomy for victim-survivors: Entailing provision for direct and indirect service users and for the safety and wellbeing of tamariki even when children are not direct service users.
• Victim and whānau-centered risk assessment and safety planning: Conducted in a culturally responsive manner and reflecting knowledge of family-violence related risk factors (eg separation, pregnancy).
• Supporting a trauma and violence-informed approach: a focus on the impact of violence (distinct from other causes of trauma) on individuals and communities and recognising  interconnected experiences of interpersonal and systemic violence.
• Reflecting a ‘primary victim-survivor, predominant perpetrator’ analysis: – Reflected in policies and procedures around risk assessment, planning and service delivery.
• Recognising and addressing the rights and interests of deaf and disabled individuals and adults needing safeguarding – addressing the contexts of care and impacts of stigma and misinformation.
• Promoting culturally safe and appropriate practices: – Recognising intersectionalities and impacts for people of diverse genders, ethnicity and abilities.

How The Standards Apply 

The Standards are vital for organisations providing specialist family violence responses but can also be utilised by any organization wanting to enhance their response capabilities and organisational practices. They complement existing accreditation and practice frameworks from agencies like the Ministry of Justice, Te Kāhui Kahu and the Ministry of Social Development.

The Policy Place Abuse and Protection policies are already aligned with many aspects of the Standards, such as cultural responsiveness, safety planning, and legislative references.

However, we strive to do more. Through review and updating, Policy Place members operating in social service, health, disability and justice sectors will have their policies more specifically aligned to the Standards.  Members will therefore gain the assurance that their policies:

• Comply with legal and regulatory requirements: And reflect best practices.
• Are endorsed and utilised by different sectors: And comply with different accreditation criteria
• Guide the delivery of safe, inclusive, and responsive services: To diverse communities.

This helps build support national consistency in the application of the Standards because, as a leading provider of policies and procedures for agencies in NZ, our reviews and updates positively impact many organisations in Aotearoa. Nationwide, we are helping build a safer and more effective network of services and supports for those impacted by family and sexual violence.

Conclusion

Regularly reviewing and updating our policies is not just about compliance; it’s about ensuring that our members are equipped with the best tools and practices to provide safe, effective, and inclusive services. By aligning with the Specialist Family Violence Organisation Standards and incorporating feedback and new developments, we can support our members in delivering high-quality care and protection to those who need it most. Together, we can make a significant impact in the fight against family and sexual violence.

We’ve just introduced Policy Tracking and Reporting for members of the Police Place’s online policy service.

This new function provides managers with valuable information about the views and use of organisational policies and procedures. It also offers evidence of compliance that organizations can use for audits and assessments, ensuring adherence to the Social Sector Accreditation Standards, Ngā Paerewa Health and Disability Standards and other relevant laws and regulations.

In this post, we’ll cover what Policy Tracking involves, its benefits and how to impelement and use this new function.

If you are a member of the online policy service let us know if you want access to the new function. If you are not yet a member, contact us NOW to discuss joining.

What is Policy Tracking 

Policy Tracking reports on the use and views of an organisation’s policies. It tells you which of your policies have been viewed and by whom, within chosen timeframes.

Here’s an example of a Policy Report:

• The report can be specific to a staff member or group of staff.
• It can be specific to policy pages.
• It can consider policy views within your chosen timeframe. .

The Benefits

We added this function because clients were asking for it. Policy Tracking and Reporting will bring the following benefits:

1. Enhanced Compliance: Policy tracking provides records of policy views that can be used to evidence compliance with policies and laws during audits and inspections. This transparency can protect an organisation from liability and shows a proactive approach to compliance.
2. Risk Management: Ensuring that all staff have viewed and understood critical policies like the Code of Conduct, Health and Safety, and Complaints reduces the risk of non-compliance with laws and regulations and harmful consequences.
3. Operational Efficiency: By automating the tracking of policy views, organisations can save time and resources that would otherwise be spent manually monitoring compliance.
4. Improved Transparency and Responsibility: Policies should be a single source of truth for an organisation. Policy Tracking reminds staff of the need to keep themselves informed about revisions and updates to policies and helps steer organisational members in the same direction.
5. Continuous Improvement: Policy Tracking will provide information that can help investigate workplace incidents or complaints and plan training and service improvements.

Beware of privacy implications

Policy Tracking involves handling staff personal information, so applying privacy safeguards is crucial:

• Inform Staff: Before implementing the Policy Tracking function, let staff know you are going to do it and the purpose behind it.
• Anonymise Data: When using the Tracking data for audit and assessment purposes, remove identifying information. Anonymised and aggregated data provides as good evidence of policy use as identifying data.
• Restrict Access: Only allow authorised personnel to access Tracking data to ensure personal information remains secure. Usually, access will be confined to management.
• Limit Data Use: Tracking data must not be used for any purpose unrelated to the reason it is gathered unless allowed by law.
• Transparency: Inform staff they can request access to the tracking data you collect about their access and use of policies.

Limitations of Policy Tracking

We’ve previously posted about the limitations of a compliance-focused approach to policy. The limitations apply to the new Policy Tracking function.

While policy tracking tells you if a person has looked at a policy, it does not tell you whether they understood the policy or whether the policy has been applied. That’s where our online courses come in. Check them out here. They are short online courses that support members and non-members of the online policy service in understanding and applying policies and procedures in a range of areas.

Conclusion

The new service for tracking staff views of policies and procedures promises many benefits for our online policy members. It will support our policy clients in building service quality and efficiency, reducing risk, and fostering a culture of transparency and responsibility.

If you want to use the Policy Tracking function and you’re one of our online policy service members, then just let us know. If you’re not an online policy service member but are interested in joining, contact us to discuss your policy needs and how we can assist.

Contact us NOW to enhance your compliance and operational efficiency with our new Policy Tracking and Reporting service.

Risk management is a key reason for policies and procedures  –  risks like financial mismanagement, accidents, cyberthreats, privacy.

Take a broad view. No need to be afraid of risk. The wider your view of risk the better prepared you can be and the more able and confident you can feel in your business/organisation.

While risks will be unique to your operation, there are also risks that all of us in business need to manage.  At the Policy Place, we help organisations manage these risks with online policies that are regularly reviewed and updated and with other strategies like guidelines and checklists.

Some of the common risks for organisations are listed below, with some of the more common policies and strategies to help manage these risks:

Financial Risk Management 

• Policy and procedures relating to financial planning and controls
• Fraud and Corruption policy
• Protected Disclosures policy
• Financial Planning and Investment policies

Information Risk Management 

• Preventative & Troubleshooting Maintenance Contracts
• Privacy and Confidentiality policy
• Record Management and Archiving system
• Privacy Breach Procedure
• Information Safeguards policy and procedure

Managing Economic & Political Risks

• Media-related policies and processes
• Hazard-management policy and procedure
• Staff and Governance Recruitment Policies and Procedures
• Strategic & Business Planning
• Hazard & Risk Register

Health and Safety Risk Management 

• Wellbeing policy and procedure
• Health and Safety procedures including Hazard and Risk Register; Staff Participation
• Induction and ongoing staff training
• Pandemic Planning
• Infection Control policy and procedures
• Cultural Safety and Responsiveness policy and training
• Harassment and Bullying policy and procedure

Service-related Risk Management

• Complaints and Feedback Policy and Procedures
• Performance and service planning and review processes
• Quality Management policy and procedure
• Training and development of staff
• Policies to guide delivery
• Business Continuity Plan