Policy Management During a Crisis: FFCRA Policy Template + Pandemic Policy Guidance
- May 20, 2020
- Quantivate
Effective policies can be the glue that holds your organization together. They define how the business should operate by outlining clear boundaries and expectations for individual and process behavior. Having well-crafted policies can significantly reduce risk and decrease confusion, especially in times of significant change. The process of maintaining your policies; keeping them up to date; and ensuring that every employee has seen, attested to, and been trained on those policies can be a challenge in normal conditions. In the midst of a global pandemic, it is even harder. Now more than ever, organizations need an effective policy management system.
Crisis-Proofing Your Policy Management System
Without clear processes for the policy management lifecycle, institutions aren’t equipped to communicate temporary changes in policies to a remote workforce. Policies end up in many different formats and versions, scattered across multiple locations. This ultimately hurts the organization that is trying to respond to the crisis, making it difficult to maintain an enterprise-wide view of policies and procedures. With information changing almost daily, it’s important to have a single source of truth for employees that is easily accessible, consistent, and accurate.
Proper policy management is also a critical part of a successful GRC and risk management framework and culture. When properly communicated, enforced, and managed, policies provide a solid guide for organizational governance, help identify risk, and define how an organization will meet its compliance requirements.
At Quantivate, we understand the challenges associated with policy management and how a mature policy management system fits into a healthy risk culture and successful GRC initiatives. We’ve designed our Policy and Document Management Software to help you:
- Provide access to all active policies through employee dashboards
- Quickly notify employees of new or updated policies
- Manage attestation workflows and tracking
- Coordinate online training
- And much more
Policy Management Resources
No matter the status of your policy management program, action is needed to address the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. To help your organization get on the right track with creating or updating policies, we’ve assembled a Pandemic & Crisis Management Policy Toolkit containing:
- Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) Policy Template: Save time and legal fees with this free template for creating a basic policy outlining employees’ rights under the FFCRA.* Simply fill in your organization name in the highlighted spaces, and it’s ready to distribute to employees. This legislation, effective from April 2 through December 31, 2020, expands the Family Medical Leave Act to include provisions for families impacted by the coronavirus. While the FFCRA does not require organizations to create a corresponding policy, employees may have questions or find it difficult to understand their rights without clear documentation in place.
* More information is available at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/ffcra. The content in this sample policy is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
- Pandemic & Crisis Management Policy Guidebook: Explore more than a dozen quick guides for developing your own pandemic and crisis management policies. The collection addresses a range of scenarios, such as company closures, working from home, quarantine and isolation, social distancing, PPE usage, and returning to work, among others. We’ve compiled them all into a single e-book for your reference.
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE POLICY TOOLKIT
Looking to learn more about developing a successful policy management system? Check out these selections for further reading and educational materials: