Simple HR Policies and Procedures

The HRM Function should be simple as the employees and managers have a chance to understand the basics of Human Resources quickly. When you read your HR Policies and HR Procedures you can a completely different picture. The HR Policies are not simple; they are very complicated as they try to solve every potential issue during the daily business life.

The HR Professionals try to describe everything in the HR Policies. They do not like to have many conflicts and issues with the managers and employees and they try to describe any potential exception in the HR Policies. Honestly, the HR Policies are about a lot of exceptions and the employees and managers are not able to find the regular process description in the policy then.

As the HRM Function is not sure about its position in the organization, the HR Policies are written and formalized the secure way. As they allow to have a short general process description, the aim of the policy and then a long description of all the exceptions, which can occur.

The simple HR Policies are the clear sign of the confident Human Resources. When the HRM Function does not need to have a policy behind and it is confident to provide a good explanation to managers and employees, which is accepted, then the HR Policy is not needed at all.

The HR Professionals should not worry about their negotiation and presentation skills. When the managers understand the principle behind the HR Policy, they can accept it and they can follow the HR Policy using a common sense. They have no memory to understand all the details of the policy, they need a basic guideline and when the exception occurs, they can negotiate with the HRM Function about it.

The HR Policy has to be simple. The employees need a basic navigation and they can always ask for the detail, when they need it. When their friends ask them about the practice in their company, they can explain a simple story, they are not able to speak about tons of conditions to be accomplished before they are taken into account.

The HRM Function has to keep in mind their employees and their managers, as they are the users of the HR Policy. The users are always a key to write and implement the simple HR Policy or the simple HR Procedure.