Survey reveals HR professionals failing to secure policy agreements from staff

New research reveals that more than one in three HR professionals do not require a record of acknowledgement from staff in the advent of a policy change, according to a new survey by NETconsent.

The research of 100 HR professionals looked at how their companies distribute, communicate and update policies. More than half (51%) of respondents require employee-acknowledgement of policy changes, four per cent said it depends on the policy and 45 per cent do not require any record of agreement.

While 64 per cent of respondents use electronic means to communicate policy changes, 21 per cent use paper and 13 per cent communicate them verbally. Only three per cent have invested in an automated policy management system with an integrated audit trail, which eliminates the need for paper chasing.

Other key findings include:

- Paper carries weight ñ Of those that require agreement to policy changes, 51 per cent do so by paper records. This is in line with CIPD recommendations that signed paper policies are the most transferable and legally binding documentation. However, paper records are impractical for organisations with hundreds of employees or a remote workforce. This could explain why the next most popular channel was email, with 40 per cent of respondents citing this.

- Breaking the paper chain ñ A trend toward e-HR practices is evident with over two thirds of HR managers currently posting policy changes to staff via email or the intranet. This may increase efficiency of policy distribution but can still cause administrative headaches, as it does not automatically show whether staff have acknowledged or agreed to policies.

- Too little too late - While 69 per cent of respondents update policies after a formal review or a change in circumstances, a worrying six per cent said they hardly ever update policies and a further six per cent only update them after a crisis.

Dom Saunders, operations director at NETconsent, comments: While it is encouraging that most HR professionals are taking policy updates seriously, not communicating these changes to staff can leave an organisation open to litigation if they cannot prove that staff have read and acknowledged them. Having a clear audit trail of who has seen and agreed to policies is essential if companies are to protect themselves. An automated policy management tool not only ensures that policies are communicated cost effectively, but also records who has and who hasnít agreed to them.î