HR policies: 10 best practices for creating effective policies
- Dan Hawtrey
HR policies are some of the most important and most read policies within any organisation. How you create and then manage HR policies matters.
Every business has HR policies that all employees need to read and access. Having the right HR policies supports compliance, maintains professional standards, minimises risk for both the business and individual employees, and even helps to define your employee value proposition. With HR policies, the devil really is in the detail, so they need to be written, reviewed and managed with great care.
Sarah May is a UK-based independent HR Consultant and workplace mediator, and founder of consultancy Mayday HR. Sarah is an expert in the HR policy space and has also helped us here at Content Formula (the producers of Xoralia) create our own HR policies.
We asked Sarah for some of her tips and views on the best practices for creating and managing HR policies.
Make HR policies understandable and digestible
Xoralia is a comprehensive policy management solution that is built for Microsoft 365 including SharePoint and Teams, which focuses on a strong user experience for employees, policy owners, and admins.
“The trick to writing HR policies is that they have to be something that people will read and understand,”
advises May.
“If you write policies that are long winded and full of legal jargon, they’ll just never be read. You need to use plain language.”
Ensure HR policies are relevant for your organisation
Many HR teams choose to purchase an HR policy template to use. While this gives businesses a starting point to finalising a policy, it is important to then customise the policy, so it makes sense for your organisation and rings true for employees.
“Policies should reflect your organisational tone of voice and be relevant. If you buy policies off the shelf and they don’t make sense for your business, then people will then ignore it”
warns May.
“I was once reviewing an employee handbook, and it was for a fully remote business, and they had a page and a half on smoking! If one thing isn’t relevant, the employee may think none of this is relevant and will ignore the policy.”
Policies must mirror the legislative landscape
HR policies help to ensure business and their employees remain compliant with the law. But the HR legislative landscape is complex and ever changing – and that’s true for most countries in the world. Wherever you are operating, May warns HR policies must always keep in step with the law.
“For example, here in the UK there is the ACAS code of practice around disciplinary and grievance policies, and any related policy should mirror this. Same for things like bullying, harassment, and equal opportunities. So, when I write policies these days for a UK company, I normally add in a link to the ACAS guidance.”
A policy needs purpose, process and guidance
A question we often get asked at Xoralia is which elements should be included in an HR policy. When asked for her views on what to include, May stresses that different HR policies can include different elements but also mentions a number of common areas.
“In terms of format, a policy should have a general overview, which would cover the purpose of the policy – the what and the why. I think it also needs to have details of any processes involved in policy. Sometimes you may want to have a flow chart – it doesn’t all have to be written. And you may also have guidance – for example manager guidance on using the policy.”
Use examples to make your HR policy tangible
HR policies need to be crystal clear and avoid ambiguity. May suggests including real world examples to help illustrate an HR policy, supporting better understanding by making the policy less theoretical and more tangible.
“In a bully and harassment policy, you’d want examples of what harassment is and what isn’t acceptable. In a whistleblowing policy, you'd have examples of what constitutes whistleblowing. I think examples are really helpful.”
Outline employee and employer responsibilities
An HR policy should not be a document solely about the duties of the employer or just about the rules for an employee to follow. It should really cover both bases.
“Policies are two-way,”
explains May.
“They are there for the employer to set out to the employee saying, ‘here's what you can expect from us,’ but it is also there for the employer to say, ‘this is what we expect from you’. It goes both ways so it’s always helpful to outline employee responsibilities and employer responsibilities relating to a particular area.”
Make escalation points clear
HR policies can involve sensitive areas and cover a process such as reporting a grievance, where an employee may need to raise an issue in confidence. In these cases, May stresses the importance of the policy detailing the escalation point if somebody does need to raise a concern.
May comments “It's always helpful to add in where your escalation point is. So, if you have a grievance against your manager, how do you escalate that? I’ve dealt with cases where one of the key issues is that there is no proper process for when someone wants to complain about the boss.”
May also explains that in some very small businesses, escalation can be difficult with everyone so close to each other, which can deter issues being reported. Sometimes it can help to have an external third party to report a grievance to, and May herself is the escalation contact for some of her smaller clients.
Always include a review date
Keeping HR policies up to date is essential so they need to be regularly reviewed. May comments
“You should always include a review date on a policy. I'd recommend that policies are reviewed at least annually. At the review, ask has anything changed? Is this policy still fit for purpose? Do we need to do it differently? Have we had problems in the past year from this policy, and do we need to tweak it?”
Equally important is having a clear review process, including who is responsible for making the change and if anyone needs to approve the changes. Having an annual review process does not mean that a policy can only be reviewed or updated at that time; May advises HR teams to keep an eye on any legislative changes that will trigger a need to review a policy at any time.
“You might not need to change your whole policy, but you need to update it. You always have to follow the law.”
Get stakeholder input where necessary
Naturally HR policies are principally going to be defined and articulated by the HR team. But sometimes it can be important to make sure you involve other business stakeholders in giving input or being part of the review process. May mentions “Working from home” policies as an example of an HR policy that usually requires wider input.
“When you review a work from home policy, you don’t just check whether it is legally compliant. You would go, are we still happy with what we're offering our people? Is this flexible enough? Are we giving them too much flexibility? Have we had issues? For some areas, it’s really important to get stakeholder buy in outside of the HR team.”
This may mean that stakeholders need to be formally involved in the policy review process.
“You might want to add someone outside of HR that also reviews a policy, because HR policies always need buy in from other stakeholders.”
Be careful when using generative AI
Generative AI can create documents in seconds that seem very credible. However, you need to be very careful if you are using ChatGPT and other similar AI engines to generate HR policies which may contain errors and leave critical elements out.
“I'm seeing a lot of businesses these days writing their own HR policies and getting ChatGPT to do it” observes May. “But if you use the wrong prompt, ChatGPT might not give you the right answers. It can be dangerous to rely on AI for writing your policies.”
Summary of HR policy best practices
| Best practice | Notes |
|---|---|
| Make HR policies understandable and digestible | Avoid legal jargon and huge documents while using plain English to ensure policies get read |
| Ensure HR policies are relevant for your organisation | If you use an off-the-shelf HR policy always modify it to your organisation and culture so it is relevant and rings true |
| Policies must mirror the legislative landscape | An HR policy must always keep in step with the law – link to more details of the legislation or guidance if necessary |
| A policy needs purpose, process and guidance | An HR policy should detail its stated purpose, provide information around processes, and include or link to related guidance |
| Use examples to make your HR policy tangible | Provide real world examples of where an HR policy applies to aid understanding and avoid ambiguity |
| Outline employee and employer responsibilities | Policies should be two-way, covering both of what an employer is required to do, and also the duties of employees |
| Make escalation points clear | HR policies can be sensitive – include the detail of any escalation points if somebody has an issue |
| Always include a review date | Policies must be kept up to date so always include a review date and define a related review process |
| Get stakeholder input where necessary | Some policies will need to be reviewed by other business stakeholders outside HR – getting buy-in is important |
| Be careful when using generative AI | Writing HR policies using generative AI is risky as they may contain errors and miss vital details |
How Xoralia helps support HR best practices
Xoralia can support many of the above HR policy best practices, for example:
- Providing a standard template for your HR policies – or even different types of HR policies – so that it includes the elements outlined in this blog.
- Supporting automated review reminders for policy owners so HR policies always remain up to date.
- Establishing custom review and approval workflows for new or updated policies so these go through the correct process and can involve different stakeholders from across the business
- And more!
Our thanks to Sarah for sharing her excellent insights with us for this article.
The story behind Xoralia
Xoralia was built by the team at Content Formula, an intranet and digital workplace consultancy that has built SharePoint intranets for some of the world’s most famous companies. Now, most companies want their policies and procedures on the intranet but they don’t just want to store them there, they also want tools to help better manage them. Over the years we came across just about every single requirement for a policy management system. As this article above explains, there are gaps in SharePoint and so we never built what in our mind was the perfect policy management system.
However, one of our clients challenged us to build something for them that filled all the gaps but still used SharePoint at the back end. We had a great relationship with them and agreed to share the budget to do this, provided we could then market the solution to others. That was in 2019. We’re now on version 3 of Xoralia and the product has grown and evolved a lot.
3 benefits you can expect from Xoralia
Make it easy to find policies
Centralised policy library with powerful search and filtering
Reduce administrative burden
Automations and notifications so that all policy tasks are carried out on time
Demonstrate compliance and best practice
Sophisticated tracking and dashboards to drive and measure compliance.
And lots more!
What our clients say
A great time saver and tool for document management
We have found Xoralia to be very beneficial to us as it has allowed us to focus on other area’s as Xoralia will take care of who has read the documents and notify them if they have not. A great time saver and tool for document management all together.
Tim Galer
IT Coordinator
Hughes
Ideal partner for our regulated environment
LifeArc operates in a strictly regulated sector where compliance and information security are critical. It is essential that LifeArc’s workforce have easy and effortless access to the latest up-to-date policies and procedures, which is the structure Xoralia gave us.
Adam Lythgoe
IT Manager
LifeArc
How to get started with Xoralia
Step 1: Explore or request a demo
Start a free trial for instant, hands-on access, or fill out our form to book a personalised demo at a time that suits you.
Step 2: Get a price proposal
If Xoralia looks right for your organisation, ask us for a tailored quote. We’ll outline any options and packages to fit your needs.
Step 3: Install and launch
Set up Xoralia in your environment with our support. We’ll provide onboarding, training, and full assistance to get your team up and running quickly.
Here's what you'll get
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Central policy library
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Search and filter tools
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Mandatory read policies with attestations
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Quizzes
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Notifications and alerts
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Employee dashboard
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Line manager dashboard
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Works on mobile, in Teams and SharePoint
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New policy creation workflows
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Policy update workflows
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Review and approval gates
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Policy version history
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Compliance dashboard
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Audit trail
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Full reporting
And last but not least:
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Professional implementation service and support
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Evergreen software – frequent updates and improvements
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Comes with our "it just works" support warranty – we’ll fix any bugs, often before you even notice
Ready to get started?
Connect with us to streamline your policy management and ensure effortless compliance.
Improved efficiency and complicance with Xoralia
Xoralia has improved the way we handle, distribute, and track policies and procedures within our organization. Not only does it allow us to save a lot of time, but it has helped us also to maintain and track compliance. Currently, we have a 99% attestation rate.
Nadja Boyum
VP Marketing & HR
Boyum IT
Uniting excellence in integration and features for seamless policy management
As the newly appointed IT Manager at our company, I was tasked with implementing the Xoralia policy management tool, and the experience has been nothing short of impressive.
Rian Stuart
IT Manager
TwinStream
