Good morning Sally, Hi Sally, This is certainly not a simple question and answer. Some of it depends on these factors:
Will your management require the policy owners to participate? Is your role one of influence? In what way(s) will the policy owner benefit from having their policies centralized? Will they have greater visibility for their subject matter? Will they have less maintenance work? Will they benefit from assistance in the writing of the policies? How might you respond to concerns that this change will take away to change their policies when they need to? How much time do they have to adjust to this transition? How much of the work would fall on their shoulders? So, if we were starting over, I would begin with knowing who is backing the change. I guarantee you will need this individual or group at some point in the process. I would get the following pulled together before having the first conversations: 1) The list of policy owners (can you tell and do they know it?) and a good idea as to their volume of policies 2) The names of those policy owners who are the most influential 3) A preliminary assessment as to who might be the most resistant and who would like support a change 4) A walk and talk document about the rationale for making the move, and certainly, what's in it for them. Without knowing how your organization operates, here are just some ideas as to how introduce the change proposed. 1) Meet individually with each policy owner. The great thing about this approach is that it's very personal and if there is a lot of dissension, there aren't several people jumping on the band wagon at the same time. But it take time. 2) If you knew there would be quite a few supporters, then small group discussions would be more efficient and the dissenters could hear their peers be supportive. 3) If the total number of policy owners is small, then one group conversation could happen. Maybe it would work to have the top management support introduce the change and then open up the flow for discussion. Never, ever would I start with an email notification. What problem(s) are you trying to solve? This would be a natural question for your owners to ask. In their opinion, things might be rolling along just fine and this change will just slow things down or add too much bureaucracy. I'd devote a slide on this topic alone. I think it would be good to show them what could be too (use a mockup of what you're planning, show them other sites and other policies against which they might compare what you have now, etc.) *A Comparison* A colleague of mine who left the University this fall for a big corporation, who is also merging with another large international company, started with having management support in place. Each division had their own template, own policies, and their own processes. She started out by meeting with the vice president for each division and then directors with operational responsibilities for policy. When she met, she had the vision which included expected benefits, sought to understand their local policy development and approval process, and asked for their feedback/response to the vision. Just to give you an idea as to effort, my colleague has just launched the equivalent of a senior policy committee She is working with the technology group to develop or purchase a policy management tool and creating the suite of standard templates. She also said that it was really important to cement the definition of policy and obtain agreement. Best of luck! Michele On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Maziarz, Sally <[email protected]> wrote: > Our policies are not currently centralized and I’m wondering if anyone > can share strategies for getting policy owner buy-in to share their > policies and agree to centralization (as a first step in the process). > > > > Thank you. > > > > Sally > This email message, including any attachments, is for the intended > recipient(s) only, and contains confidential and proprietary information. > Unauthorized distribution, copying or disclosure is strictly prohibited. If > you have received this message in error, or are obviously not one of the > intended recipients, please immediately notify the sender by reply email > and delete this email message, including any attachments. Thank you. > > ATTN: Please be aware that when you respond to an ACUPA-L e-mail, the > reply will be distributed to the ENTIRE list of members. If you do NOT want > to send an e-mail to everyone, please reply directly to the individual who > initiated the query (their e-mail address appears in the "From" line of > their original e-mail). > > If you wish to remove yourself from the ACUPA e-mail list, please go to > the following website and complete the form. 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