Policies, Process, Procedures & Plans
Getting your paperwork in order.
Dr Genevieve Burnett can help you ensure that your Policies, Processes, Procedures and Plans are compliant with the Positive Duty.
Why are Policies, Processes and Procedures so important when it comes to complying with the Positive Duty?
Under the Guidelines for Complying with the Positive Duty, the process of eliminating sex discrimination, sexual harassment and sex-based harassment from the workplace involves working on areas such as:
- leadership
- culture
- knowledge
- risk management
- support
- reporting and response.
One of the practical ways of doing this is to make sure your policies, processes and procedures are aligned with your objectives.
How can Dr Genevieve Burnett help you review and update your Policies, Processes and Procedures?
I can help you review your policies, procedures and processes and ensure they are compliant with
the Positive Duty.
I can also help you develop a Prevention and Response Plan.
What are the steps we need to take?
Step 1
Review and update your Policies
During this first stage, I make sure your business is sitting on the right foundations to achieve compliance with the Positive Duty.
I review your existing policies and make sure they cover:
- sex discrimination
- sexual harassment
- sex-based harassment
- hostile work environment on the basis of sex
- victimisation
Most importantly, I make sure that they are in clear and plain language so everyone can understand them.
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Step 2
Review and update your Processes
You can’t just rely on policies to achieve compliance with the Positive Duty.
You also need the right processes sitting under your policies.
For example, your processes for managing a case of sexual discrimination or sexual harassment will set out the steps required to manage each incident.
I find that processes are usually most effectively represented in a flow chart or hierarchically as a tree.
Ultimately, we need to design the right processes for your business or organisation.
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Step 3
Review and update your Procedures
You will also need to map out the procedures that sit under the processes.
These will formalise how you manage any issues so that everyone manages a situation and incident in the same way.
For example, your procedures for managing a sex discrimination or sexual harassment complaint will set out the procedures for managing each stage in the complaint process.
This is vital to ensure that issues are managed in the same way irrespective of who is the person making the complaint.
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Step 4
Prepare your Prevention and Response Plan
Under the Australian Human Rights Commission Guidelines, you also need a Prevention and Response Plan that shows you have addressed the 7 standards and 4 guiding principles set out in that document. In other words, you need to show how you are implementing the holistic approach required under the Guidelines.
Most importantly, this document must be tailored to your specific business, firm or organisation.
To create the Prevention and Response Plan, we will also draw on the work we have done on your Policies, Processes and Procedures.
What will you walk away with?
At the end of the process, you will know your key risk areas and have a set of policies, processes and procedures that are clear and transparent.
They will not only give everyone in your business or organisation clarity but provide a framework for guiding everyone through the process if there is an incident.
How much does it cost to update your Policies, Processes and Procedures?
The cost of preparing Policies, Processes and procedures will depend on:
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the size and complexity of your organisation
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whether your policies, procedures and processes need to be drafted from scratch or simply updated
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the number of policies, procedures and processes that you require.