Policy and Procedure Management: Best Practices and Resources

Businesses today know that attracting and retaining top talent are essential to a business’s livelihood — which is why employee engagement has become increasingly important.

Building employee engagement (and retention) starts from their first day at the office, when you introduce them to your company’s culture through sharing the company’s policies and procedures. A company’s policies give employees an immediate sense of what the company stands for — its values, business ethics and personality. In turn, sound policies reassure employees, giving them the confidence and security to work to their full potential… READ MORE

Do your policies and procedures include a disaster recovery or emergency action plan? What happens when a natural disaster, power outage or other unplanned event occurs?

About 40% – 60% of businesses never reopen following a disaster, according to the Small Business Administration, meaning an emergency action plan plays an essential role in helping businesses recover and continue.

The first step in building a plan is to create policies for disaster recovery and then define detailed procedures for each policy… READ MORE

SOP Full Article

Accountability for creating SOPs within an organization is often dynamic, as policy creation should be a combined effort from both the regulatory compliance team and operational leaders. Operational leaders are not always in the same location as compliance team members, making it sometimes difficult to coordinate. The right technology, however, can bring the right compliance leaders together to efficiently create relevant SOPs… READ MORE

SOP Article I of III

Every organization has rules, policies, procedures and standards by which its employees must abide. The choice to agree and act in accordance with the standards of the organization must be a voluntary action by the employees. Enforcing the standards can be difficult, if they haven’t been properly communicated to the employee base through documentation, managerial involvement and company culture… READ MORE

SOP Article II of III

SOP defines what an organization’s policies are, while outlining the steps necessary to respond to the situation denoted in the policy. They’re our quick reference guide on the daily in-and-outs of how to perform necessary job functions. It especially becomes handy as organizations grow and experience turnover, promotions and general human resource movement between organizations… READ MORE

SOP Article III of III

Now that we have explored the realm of SOP and regulatory compliance, let’s take a look at the types of features to consider when looking at SOP solutions… READ MORE

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a federal anti-bribery statute that makes it “unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice website.

The FCPA has been around since 1977, and has received greater attention and increased enforcement in the past few years, leading to increased corporate penalties for violations…READ MORE

How many of your employees leave scribbled passwords on post-it notes under their keyboards on their desks or taped to the bottom of a drawer? Or, they have confidential information on their laptops, which they take home to work on?

Employees don’t mean to jeopardize the organization’s information security — they’re loyal to the company and dedicated to their jobs, but when they’re focused on the tasks at hand, they often don’t think about cybersecurity threats, risks and potential vulnerable areas… READ MORE

Your company has decided it’s ready to take your policy or contract management system to the next level and look into compliance management software vendors. You’ve been tasked with researching and evaluating vendors and products.

Beyond comparing the actual features of the products and price, what else should you look for and ask about when choosing the right partner? … READ MORE

Today, financial institutions are continually pressured to decrease costs while increasing profitability. On top of these tasks, they must juggle demanding customers looking for faster, more personalized service, safeguarding against cybersecurity attacks and adhering to regulatory compliance standards.

To meet these demands, banks, credit unions and other financial services organizations have focused on creating and improving processes through automation… READ MORE

Whether your healthcare organization has been prepared for months for its next audit or you’re just getting started, there’s no time to panic or toss in the towel (if your compliance program doesn’t seem up-to-speed yet).

OCR focuses on a few main HIPAA violations, including: failure to conduct risk evaluations of data breaches, ignoring security threats to PHI and poor training of staff in how to protect PHI, according to a recent TechTarget article.

To ensure you’ve addressed the above concerns, hospital compliance officers should keep in mind the seven basic elements of an effective compliance program… READ MORE

Going through that stack of papers — other than ensuring they sat on a somewhat neat, yet ever-growing pile — was definitely the last thing on your mind as you skipped out of your office on Friday.

However, a well-thought-out document management system not only eliminates clutter and keeps your office tidy, but it also helps make your job easier (and eliminates time-consuming, menial tasks!) — and for HR professionals and office managers, means the office as a whole runs smoother…. READ MORE