Your how-to: Formalising the policy review and update cycle
Formalising the policy review and update cycle in your workplace is the systematic process of examining, revising and implementing your organisation's policy related to maintaining and enhancing the mental wellbeing of your employees. Essentially, it's a cycle that ensures your organisation's procedures align with current best practices and legislative requirements like those stated under the Safe Work Australia's 'Work Health and Safety Act 2011'.
By formalising this cycle, your organisation ensures the policy remains effective, relevant and contributes to the overall aim of improving employee mental wellbeing. The expected frequency of the review can depend on the organisation's size, nature of work, and complexity of the workplace mental health scenario.
Step by step instructions
Policy Scoping: This is the initial stage in the policy review cycle. It involves examining the current mental wellbeing policies in place within your workplace. Understand the gaps, assess the efficiency of the existing policy and identify areas that require changes.
Stakeholder Review and Approval: In this phase, provide the revised policy to the decision-makers within your organisation for review. This phase may involve discussions and further adjustments of policies based on their feedback. The ultimate acceptance of the revised policy by these key stakeholders will lend credibility to your initiatives.
Monitor and Review: After implementation, monitor the policy's impact closely. Assess its efficiency in maintaining and enhancing your employees' mental wellbeing. Regular feedback loops with employees can be helpful in this process.
Reflect and Breathe: This step can be challenging, so it's important to take a moment to breathe and reflect. Pause to consider the progress made, the obstacles encountered, and the lessons learned. This reflection will not only help in gaining clarity but also in maintaining a balanced perspective, allowing for thoughtful and deliberate decision-making moving forward.
Policy Revision: Following the ‘Policy Scoping’ phase, it’s essential to revise the policy based on the identified gaps and new research. Leverage best practices on mental health prevention, response and recovery, integrating these into your existing policy. You may need to seek expert advice to help with policy revision and leverage research to inform your actions.
Policy Implementation: Upon approval, disseminate the updated policy across all levels of the organisation. This may include issuing policy documents, providing training to staff, human resources personnel and management, and communicating the changes through internal newsletters or team meetings.
Pause to Evaluate Progress: Take regular pauses to evaluate the progress of the process. Use these moments to gather data on outcomes and solicit feedback from participants. Reflecting on metrics like engagement, satisfaction, and effectiveness will provide insights into what's working well and what might need adjustment.
Lastly, please note that this cycle is not a one-time process. Regular review and updating will ensure your policy remains robust, relevant and legally compliant. Depending on the complexity of your workplace mental health scenario, the review frequency can vary. The nature of your work and the size of your business directly impact how often this cycle needs to be repeated.
Use this template to implement
To ensure you can execute seamlessly, download the implementation template.
Pitfalls to avoid
Ensure that you're familiar with the laws and regulations relating to workplace policies in Australia. Misinterpreting the Fair Work Act 2009, for example, or overlooking regulations established by Safe Work Australia may result in non-compliant policies, leading to possible legal repercussions.
Failing to include relevant stakeholders in the discussion can be detrimental. Stakeholders, including employees, management, and possibly clients, should contribute to ensure policy represents everyone's best interests.
Unclear responsibility allocation is a threat to the successful review and update cycle. Designate responsibility to a particular individual or team to oversee the reviewing process.
Inconsistent or infrequent reviews are common pitfalls. It is crucial to determine a regular schedule for policy review, whether it's quarterly, semi-annual, or yearly, adjust it to fit your business needs.
The market and industry regulations change regularly. Ignoring the changes could lead to outdated policies. Make sure to integrate any crucial updates.
Once the policy has been reviewed and updated, the changes must be adequately communicated to all employees. Skipping or poorly executing this step could result in confusion or uninformed employees.