Policies are a great way to make all the important documents outlining expected behaviour, conduct, and workplace rules available to your organization. Policies can be created within Workhub or uploaded as their own document to be assigned to Workers for review.
Adding a New Policy
From your Admin dash, click on Policies.
Click Add New in the top right corner and select Policy from the drop-down menu.
A pop-up window for Add New Policy will appear and you can choose to either Start from Scratch or select from 150+ templates we have in our library.
Choosing to Start from Scratch will open the page on a blank text editor where you can type in your Policy details or copy & paste from an existing document you might have. Using the text editor will make it easier to update your policies in the future, and work best with our version control tool. Our downloadable Policy Manual is also only available to text format policies. And, if you have any workers with a different language selected on their profile, any text format policies will be automatically translated for them.
You can upload a PDF document. Toggle the Format over and upload your desired file. Don't forget to add a Policy Name and a Section Number.
If you choose a policy template from our library, the template will be added to the text editor with your organization name prepopulated, and you can make any necessary edits. These are generic templates, so feel free to make it your own. The policy name and section number have also been populated.
In the Policy Settings, you can tailor the Policy to your liking. You can set your:
Policy Contact
Admin Review Interval
Worker Review Time
Points Accumulation
Allow workers to download the Policy: Yes or No
Add signing authority: Yes or No
These settings will default to the global settings in the Settings component for Policies, but you can change them as needed for each of your Policies.
The Admin Review Interval is an important setting because your Workers will not be prompted on a regular basis to review the Policy. They will only be prompted when an Admin reviews the Policy and makes a Major Update.
If you need your Workers to review your Policies on a regular basis, make sure the Admin Review Interval matches that!
Relating Items to a Policy
Below the settings panel, you have the Related Items section which allows you to link other items in your Workhub account to a policy. This includes items in Online Training, Certificates, Procedures, Training, Competencies, and Other Forms. Just click on the Add button to start adding related items. If you add a related item by accident, just click the trash can icon to remove it. And if you accidentally remove one, click on the undo icon to restore it.
Once your Policy is saved, some additional tabs will become available in addition to the Policy Overview tab, namely: Prior Versions, Comments, Declined, Assignments, and Worker Compliance.
To download a copy of policy onto your device, click on the Policy (PDF) button.
Assigning your Policy
After creating a Policy, your next step is to assign it to your Workers to ensure it's viewed, reviewed, and acknowledged.
To assign your Policy, you can navigate to the Assignments tab along the top of the Policy screen.
In the Assignments tab, you set who you want this Policy to apply to. You will see a list of the Positions in your organization on the left side of the screen, and then columns of requirement on the centre/right. You can set the Policy Assignment to be:
N/A: N/A means the Policy will not be visible to or assigned to the Position
Optional: this assignment level makes the Policy visible in the list for that Position but does not make the Policy required
Required: The Required columns include low, medium, high, and critical. Any of them will list the Policy as a red requirement for your Workers.
If you have the setting Enable assignment of policies by location set to Yes, the Assignment page will differ a bit in how it displays. As a warning, enabling assignment of any component by Location adds an extra layer of complexity in database querying, and can substantially affect load times within an account. We recommend avoiding using this setting for all but the largest and most complex organizations!
You will still see your Positions listed on the left side of the page, but in the middle/right you'll see three columns for N/A, Optional, and Required. To set the assignments, click anywhere into the row for the Position you're looking to assign. You will see a pop-up that asks you which Locations you want the Position to have the Policy assigned at. It will look something like this:
After you've set the assignments for the Positions, make sure you hit Save Assignments in the top right corner of the screen.
Now you're set! That Policy will be assigned to the Positions you chose in the Assignment screen.
Reviewing Worker Compliance
The period of validity for Policies isn't set by an independent option or setting you choose like you would in Online Training and Certificates. Instead,
To review the Worker Compliance for your Policy, navigate to the Worker Compliance tab along the top of the Policy window.
The Worker Compliance screen will outline all the Workers the Policy has been assigned to and their Status for that Policy. Possible statuses for Policies include Done, Revised - Requires Review, Declined, and Missing.
Many of those status bubbles will be coloured, with red indicating a lack of compliance, green indicating compliance, and gold for items approaching expiration. The Status bubble will be grey if the Policy is assigned as Optional for a Position.
Next to the Status column is the Date/Version Reviewed column. This column is self-explanatory: it contains the date the Worker reviewed the Policy and which version of the Policy the Worker reviewed on that date.
The final column on the right side contains a menu icon (three vertical dots) that will allow you to take various action depending on the Worker's status.
If the Worker has reviewed the Policy, an admin will be able to view a Log of the Worker's compliance history or rese the Worker's compliance.
If the Worker has not reviewed the Policy, the menu icon will contain the option to Acknowledge the Policy on behalf of the Worker. If an admin acknowledges a Policy on behalf o the Worker, that information will be displayed in the Status column on the Worker Compliance screen.
At the top of that column, you'll also see a red symbol with an arrow and toggle. This symbol allows you to reset the Policy compliance for all Workers at once. Clicking it will bring up a pop-up asking for verification of the desire to reset the compliance for the number of listed Workers and a reason for the reset.
We don't have a way to reverse a compliance reset for Policies, so if you opt to reset compliance be sure it's what you really want!
Reviewing your Policies
Reviewing your Policies as an admin is important to maintaining an up-to-date, relevant Policy manual. When a Policy is coming due for review, Workhub will let you know.
In your Policy List, any Policy that is approaching its review date will be listed with a Coming Due status, displayed in a gold bubble.
If your Policy has passed its review date, its status will be listed as Requires Review and will be in a red bubble.
When you click into any Policy that is approaching or is past its review date, you will see a banner at the top of the screen alerting you to the need for a review. You can make any needed changes in your Policy then click the Review button in that banner to choose what kind of change you'd like to save.
After clicking the Review button, you will be prompted with a pop-up asking what kind of update you would like to make to the Policy and the date you want to list the change as having occurred. The three options include a Major update, a Minor update, or No change to the version. Each of these choices will have a different affect on your Policy versions.
If you choose a Major update:
the version number of your Policy will change to the next whole number (eg. from 1.0 to 2.0)
the compliance for the policy will be reset and all Workers will need to review the Policy
If you choose a Minor update:
the version number of your Policy will change to the next number after the decimal point (eg. from 1.0 to 1.1)
the compliance for the policy will not be reset and Workers who were compliant will remain compliant
If you choose No, Keep the Current Version:
the policy number will not change
the compliance for the policy will not change
Whatever choice you make, the Reason/Changes field and the Review Date field will need to be filled in.
After reviewing your Policy, the changes will be logged in the Prior Versions tab.
Each version change, whether it's minor or major, will be listed in this page. Each change will display the version number, version name, updated on date, reason for change, and who made the change. This digital paper trail allows tracking of changes for accuracy and accountability.
Settings
Within the Settings for Policies, there are numerous options allowing you to tailor the component's behaviour to your preference. Choices made in the Settings tab for Policies will be applied by default to each Policy in the account, but changes from those defaults can be made within each individual Policy.
Settings include:
By default, how long must workers study a policy before they have the option to acknowledge?
Options include intervals between 10 seconds and 30 minutes, as well as allowing No Review Time
Should the policy contact be alerted by email when a worker posts a comment?
Options include Yes or No
How often should policies be reviewed or updated (by an authorized administrator)?
Options include intervals between 1 and 4 years, as well as Never
Allow workers to decline policies?
Options include Yes or No
We recommend allowing Workers to decline Policies, but understand that user cases may not always allow for it
Enable assignment of policies by location?
This adds an extra layer of complexity to assignments, incorporating both Positions and Locations into the assignment possibilities
We generally do not recommend using this setting unless your organization is large and complex with very diverse assignment needs
Do worker comments need to be approved before they are shared with other workers?
Options include Yes or No
Allow Workers to Download the Policy?
Options include Yes or No
How many safety points should be awarded for acknowledging a policy?
Options include 1-10 points or No Points
Which policies are subject to safety points?
Options include Required policies only or Required and Optional policies
Alert policy contact by email when a worker posts a comment?
Options include Yes or No