What 55% of Finance pros don’t know about their own policies

While most Finance pros can recite the ins and outs of their policies ad nauseum, an alarming number of employers don’t have any way of knowing if and when their internal policies are being violated.

That’s a according to the recent “What Makes an Effective Policy Management Program” report by MetricStream.

Specifically, more than half (55%) of the companies surveyed didn’t know when an employee violated their internal polices.

The technology factor

This is especially troubling when you consider how many different policies the average company has in place.

Plus, with the widespread usage of new technology in the workplace, employers are finding compelling reasons to draft entirely new policies. One prime example is a social media policy.

What you can do

Hopefully, all of your company’s department heads and front-line managers are well equipped to spot employee policy violations as they take place. But even so, a little refresher training on the subject couldn’t hurt.

Another best practice to ensure compliance: getting employees to sign off on the fact that they understand (and will abide by) your company’s policies.

According to the report, the simple act of requiring employees to sign off on something significantly increases compliance rates.

An underutilized option

Finally, if compliance is something your upper management places a premium on, you may want to consider investing in a policy management software program.

In a nutshell, policy management software is a web- or cloud-based system that employers can use to better organize, edit and circulate their internal policies and procedures.

Many programs also offer policy templates that can easily be customized. Certain systems even provide added security and permission options for sensitive info and documents – as well as easy collaboration between policy creators and editors.

Currently, just 24% of organizations use policy management software. But the long-term benefits of such a move could outweigh the initial investment and learning curve associated with the software.

In fact, a majority (70%) of employers said it wasn’t challenging at all to author, distribute and train on the policies they created using a policy-management system.

For the complete MetricStream report, click here.