What does office policy mean?

Answer 1

The term can be used in at least 2 different ways. If I want to express to you that something is done in a certain way, and it is that way just because people have gotten into the habit of doing it that way, I might casually say "It's office policy." I really mean "It's just the way we do things here." But in a more formal sense, if you are working for a large enough organization there may be a collection of official written policies and procedures. These are written to help promote uniformity and quality of work, a more efficient organization, and to minimize errors and risk.

An organization's policies should be readily available to all workers, and sometimes the major ones are included in an employees' handbook; at the very least every policy that impacts a given employee should be available to that employee. Policies can generally fit on one page of paper, and are often general statements about the goals and vision concerning a given process at the organization.

Under the policy is often an outline of procedures stating as carefully as possible how the identified process is carried out. Procedures should be written in such a way that an outside reviewer or interested employee with no knowledge of the process or organization can easily walk through them. The flow should be clear. Policies are not meant to be cryptic or obtuse. Persons directly involved in the procedure should be specified by title so that changes of personnel do not render a procedure obsolete. Forms, locations, reports or other materials needed to carry out the procedure should be identified in such a way that a reviewer or interested employee attempting to understand the procedure can do so without engaging in a major archeological expedition throughout the organization.