Regardless of your business’ size or industry, you have compliance requirements. With the arrival of the new year, set up your small business for success by reviewing and updating your internal business policies. While your required health and safety and human resources policies may be established, it can be difficult to keep up with any changes and ensure everything is in good order.
It is recommended a business reviews and revises its policies annually.
Outdated policies can lead to non-compliance and that can be costly. Most jurisdictions have administrative monetary penalties for non-compliance, which range from $500 up to $100,000 – and possibly more! It can be easy to miss changes to Occupational Health and Safety, Human Rights, and Employments Standards legislation, but it is crucial to make every effort to ensure compliance - even though the target is always moving. Reviewing and updating policies is a great way to show due diligence on this front.
Improving company culture
Policies are a great way to help build a stronger company culture. Your business’ culture is based on the beliefs, behaviours, and attitudes that shape the environment and experience of working in the business.
Policies are not created in isolation. It is recommended to involve your employees in the creation and implementation of your policies; active participation helps with acceptance and understanding of why certain rules are in place. Policies can be used to show you are actively maintaining modern values such as inclusivity, wellness, and flexibility.
Likewise, involving employees during the review process creates buy-in, and gives employees an opportunity to provide their thoughts on the contents, purpose, and intention of policies.
For example: a small business owner updating their company dress code learned their employees felt that “business casual” rules were outdated. The employees suggested creating guidelines that were better suited for in-office versus working from home days versus client meeting days. By actively implementing these employees’ suggestions it created collaboration that showed flexibility and improved both morale and engagement.
Where to begin?
Reviewing your current policies for compliance can be overwhelming. Here is what you can do:
- Do an audit. Make a list of policies that you have and when they were last updated. If while auditing you notice you are missing a policy or think there is one you would want to add, include it on the list.
- Consult with an HR expert. If your small business doesn’t have a human resources department, may we suggest CFIB’s HR Now! For Small Business™? Our business advisors can check for compliance with not only health and safety but also review your internal human resources policies.
- No policies? No problem. HR Now! For Small Business™ has a large template library that you can use including hiring resources, health and safety templates and other common company polices such as a social media and drug, alcohol and medication.
- Consult and communicate any changes to your employees. You can do this through a meeting or a written memo. It is also good practice to have your employees sign copies of the new/updated policies, indicating they have read and understand the policy.
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