Like contracts of employment, a company's HR policies and procedures should reflect the culture of the organisation the company wishes to develop. They clearly apply to the workforce as a whole and as such can be used to reinforce company wide messages, values, expectations and responsibilities.

Policies

Policies are high level statements about the relationship between the company and the employees and about the overall nature of the working environment. They are statements that describe how things should be rather than how such objectives should be achieved.

Typical policies include:

• Recruitment and selection
• Promotion
• Learning and Development
• Career Development
• Performance
• Discipline
• Grievances
• Equal Opportunities and Anti Harassment
• Working Hours, Leave, and Work Life Balance
• Travel
• Expenses

Procedures

Procedures are more detailed documents which describe how policies are to be implemented. Most policies will therefore be accompanied by a procedure. Employees and/or their representatives will often be closely involved in the development and implementation of procedures, but will have less of a say over policies. Some procedures such as those dealing with disciplinary and grievance matters have to satisfy certain statutory requirements. The application of Procedures usually involves the active participation of employees.

Processes

Processes usually take place in the background and are the means by which the employee's status, record or entitlements are kept up to date. Usually they do not come to the attention of either employees or managers unless things go wrong. Example processes include those for paying staff; transferring staff; and exiting staff.

Out track record

1994 - Development and implementation of new policies, procedures and processes for new Retail business - 700 staff nationwide (a trade unionised environment)

1996 - New policies, procedures and processes for 500 Customer Services Operatives in NE England (trade unionised environment)

2005 - Design of new processes for Global Real Estate Company in preparation for the introduction of a new HR System

2006 - Advice to new start up in the Rail industry re the development and implementation of core HR Policies and Procedures.

2007 - Drafting of policies and procedures for SME in the Publishing and Conference sector. Coaching the executive on the adoption of the new policies

2008 - Advice to manufacturing business in the semi-conductor sector regarding the development and application of a new redundancy policy and procedure.