01
Audit what exists
What is written, what is practised but unwritten, and where the two disagree. The gap between the two is usually where the friction is.
Service
Policies & Benefits
Policies are what the company has decided in advance, so the same question does not get a different answer depending on who is asked. Most growing companies have some of them written, most of them assumed, and no single place where anyone can check.
The problem
Signals you will recognise
- 01The answer to how many days can I work from home depends on which manager you ask.
- 02Decisions on expenses, equipment or time off are made case by case, and the precedent is set by whoever asked first.
- 03The rules exist in a founder’s head, and every exception has to go through them.
- 04New joiners find out what the company does by asking a colleague.
- 05Benefits were added one at a time and nobody has looked at them together.
How it works
What we do
02
Decide the principles first
A handful of decisions determine every policy that follows: how much flexibility, who approves exceptions, what the company will and will not pay for. Those are agreed with leadership before anything is drafted.
03
Write the policies
Each one short enough to be read, specific enough to answer the question, and consistent with the others. Legal or financial review where a policy needs it.
04
Prepare the launch
A named owner for each policy, the templates and forms they depend on, and the communication that explains what is changing and why.
Topics covered
- Remote and hybrid work
- Time off and leave
- Expenses and equipment
- Parental leave
- Benefits
- Onboarding and offboarding
Deliverables
- The policies themselves, written and approved
- A handbook that holds them together
- The templates and forms each policy depends on
- A named owner for every policy
- An FAQ for managers and for employees
- A communication plan for the launch
Typical outcome
The same question gets the same answer regardless of who is asked, and the exceptions that remain are deliberate rather than accidental.
Six to ten weeks, with scope and price fixed before we start.
How it is delivered
01
Diagnose
02
Benchmark and principles
03
Design
04
Validate
05
Implement
06
Support
Often relevant for
Questions we are asked
No, and it does not replace it. We design the rules the company wants to live by; where a policy has legal or financial implications, it goes to your lawyer or accountant before it is published.
Because a benefit is a policy. What the company pays for, who is eligible and what happens in an exception are the same kind of decision as how many days you can work from home.
Rarely. Most of what exists is usable. The work is checking they still describe how the company actually operates, resolving the ones that contradict each other, and filling what is missing.
Fewer than most companies expect. We prioritise the ones that are costing time or causing inconsistency now, and leave the rest for when there is a reason to write them.
Your company has changed. Has your organisation caught up?
The People Diagnostic establishes where the organisation is constrained, and what to fix first.