Corporate policy
Corporate policy know also as company policy, is a singular guideline, on a certain matter involving a particular company's practice, whereas the multiple - corporate policies - are a set of guidelines involving said company. Some corporate policies are identical for all the employees in the firm, however depending on the department or division, some employees may receive additional policies aside from the general ones. These policies are usually focused on specific elements, characteristic for a certain department e. g. providing a policy on maintaining contact with vendors for the logisticis department.
Due to the fact that the organ responsible for the wellbeing and atmosphere of the company is senior management, such as the board of directors, they are in charge of instating the company policies. The objective is to present such policies as clear and as understandably as possible, in order to achieve the best effect. The target groups of such designed policies are [1]:
- Internal employees - the guidelines, are constructed after analizing all processes and operations, which occur in each of the companies departments. Their main purpose is to educate employees on how to handel certain matters, what problems can they come across and how to manage them.
- External parties - the policies inform them about various company aspects as part of useful information during cooperation.
Consequence due to lack of employee assistance policies
The policies instaded by a company, are mainly focused on helping their employees at doing their jobs, by providing guidelines and regulations. However, in many cases company policies, are also being designed to help employees maintain a healthy work-life balance. For instance, in cases such as child and senior care (since in some situations it is impossible for an employee to organize supervision for their child or elder), companies developed policies, which purpose is to help their employees in the described situations. Such policies have been instated to protect employees who are single parents or victoms of unfortunate personal life occurrences.
However, despite the fact that there are many policies dedicated to improve work conditions, there are still situations in which firms don't execute some or even all policies, designed to help employees. The effect it carries is known as a spillover. This occures when a negative working environment, effects the employees personal life, also in a negative way. Besides the lack of policies lending assistance to employees in family-matters, the cause of a spillover can also be long working hours. Neglecting the fact that an employee frequently works long hours, can cause the employer to be partially responsible for a spillover [2].
LGBT policies in workplace environment
Besides policies which are meant to improve the work-life balance in families, in recent years there has been noted a tendency to publish LGBT-supportive policies. This decision was met with a high level of support and positive effects. Studies show that companies with LGBT-supportive policies, have a better workplace atmosphere, improved co-workers relations, increased in job satisfaction and increased the productivity of LGBT employees within said company [3].
Footnotes
| Corporate policy — recommended articles |
| Merit pay — Ethical values — Front line management — Advantages of teamwork — Diversity management — Internal transfers — Job sharing — Role of employees — Importance of business ethics |
References
- Falter Mennino S., Rubin B. A. (2005) Home-To-Job and Job-To-Home Spillover: The Impact of Company Policies and Workplace CultureThe Sociological Quarterly 46, p.113
- Lee Badgett M.V., Durso L. E., Kastanis A., Mallory C., (2013) The Business Impact of LGBT-Supportive Workplace Policies p.1
- von Solmsa R., von Solms B., (2004) From policies to culture Computers & Security 23, p.276
Author: Marta Marzec
