Your employees should have guiding principles, not policies. No “policy” can create a positive outcome in all situations, and they are bound to cause someone to be unhappy and dissatisfied.
Principles, however, provide a guide for how to behave in any situation and if followed, will cause the right people to be happy, or at least feel fairly treated.
What are your company’s principles? Write them down now in several short sentences. Then communicate them (posters, signs, payroll stuffer notes, meetings, talk) so your staff knows them as well as you do.
Policies frequently result in unintended consequences and call forth the worst in people. Principles, however, draw out the best in people. Principles invite us to act in responsible, honest, and “principled” ways – in accordance with those stated principles. Principles are usually more memorable than policies.