New- Policy Tracking and Reporting for Compliance and Efficiency Gains

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.