Question

No organization can function properly or be successful without policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines. What are policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines? When might you use policies, procedures, standards, or guidelines?

Answer 1

Policy defines the broad guidelines for taking actions in specific circumstances. An organization would use policies regarding all the employment related activities including hiring, promotion, performance appraisals, termination and discipline. Standards are the mandatory rules that define the accepted level of compliance on following policies and are used in to make the policy effective. Guidelines are the non-mandatory rules in the absence of standards to guide the employees on how to behave in specific circumstances to ensure best practice. Guidelines are used in circumstances when specific standards do not apply and guide us as per the best practice that can be followed. Procedures include the rules or steps that need to be followed while taking actions in specific circumstances. Procedures are used in all situations that follow policies, standards and guidelines. All these together help to set the employee behavior in an organization and ensure employees are behaving according to the expectations. We might use policies, procedures, standards and guidelines in our daily work life to ensure we are performing as expected. Ensuring adherence would help to avoid disciplinary actions and performance issues in career.