Policy Experts / Writing

Who is this written for

A document addressed to an auditor will not be read by staff.

Policies serve at least three audiences with incompatible needs. A staff member wants to know what to do in a situation they are in now. A manager wants to know what they are accountable for. An external assessor wants to see that a control exists, is approved, and is reviewed. A single document written to satisfy the third will be structured, worded and formatted in ways that make it useless to the first.

The usual result is a document that is compliant and unread, followed by an informal one-page summary produced by a team leader that is what people actually follow. That summary is the real control and it exists outside the framework entirely, unreviewed and unversioned.

The workable arrangement is to accept the split deliberately. A policy that states the position and the obligations for the record, and a short procedural document written in the second person for the people doing the work, referencing the policy. Two artefacts, both maintained, rather than one that pretends to serve everybody.

The test for the second document is whether a new starter could follow it without asking anybody. If they could not, the informal version will reappear, and it will diverge.

It is also worth noticing which document people actually reach for in the moment. In most organisations there is a laminated sheet, a wall poster or a saved message that carries the real operating instruction, and it was written by whoever got tired of being asked. Finding those and treating them as the primary artefact, rather than as an irregularity to be replaced, usually improves both accuracy and compliance.