Townsville City Council PolicyPoint Case Study

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Since 2008 when the local government entities of Townsville City Council, NQ Water and Thuringowa City Council amalgamated to form the new Townsville City Council, PolicyPoint has been helping the Council meet its employee training and corporate governance commitments.

With more than 1700 employees, Townsville City Council services 175,000 residents across 3,700 square kilometres of far North Queensland. The Council provides a wide range of services including infrastructure, water, parks, waste, leisure and public works.

In the lead-up to the amalgamation, a comprehensive review of Council policies was undertaken. When the new Council came into being, Council management needed to ensure that the organisation’s core policies and procedures were understood by all employees.

“Each of the three organisations that became amalgamated had their own sets of policies and procedures, all of which had to be reviewed to determine their appropriateness for the amalgamated Council”, said Geraldine Wood, Executive Manager Corporate Governance, Townsville City Council. “There was a lot of potential for confusion and uncertainty amongst staff when the new Council was formed; in particular there was the risk that employees would find themselves working under  policies that were obsolete, incorrect or unexplained.”

Rather than opt for an in-house solution, Townsville Council installed PolicyPoint Enterprise, a complete policy compliance solution that allows an organisation to distribute policy information, capture staff members’ acknowledgement of relevant policies and test for understanding.

“When the new Townsville Council was created we required a policy awareness program for all employees – we regard a program of this type as one of the central building blocks of good governance”,. “The PolicyPoint system impressed us as a solution that would easily enable staff to know what our policy direction is with regards to the job role they occupy.

“It is important that the Council maintain high standards when it comes to our corporate culture. As with any local government we are funded by the public and we are accountable to the ratepayers; accordingly all our staff need to know what we stand for and what is required of them.”

The PolicyPoint solution forms part of every new employee’s induction program as well as ongoing training. Council policies are broken down into categories with many being department-specific, for example finance, roads and engineering etc. Policies that need to be understood by all employees cover such areas as codes of conduct, the environment and workplace health and safety. For many policies – for example electrical safety – there is a legal requirement for all employees to be aware of them.

Approximately every two weeks a new staff member logs onto PolicyPoint via the Council’s intranet and is introduced to a new set of policies. After reading over the policies the user answers a handful of multiple choice questions to verify their understanding of them. As new policies are introduced new PolicyPoint modules are created for staff members to respond to.

“The PolicyPoint system has enabled us to avoid a situation where new employees are bombarded with Council policy material”, said Ms Wood. “PolicyPoint allows us to pace the policy education process steadily, allowing employees the best opportunity to understand the Council’s guidelines, policies and procedures and how their job responsibilities relate to them.”

Since PolicyPoint was installed there has not been an incident whereby an employee’s ignorance of a policy has produced harmful consequences for the Council.

“As a risk management tool PolicyPoint has proved its worth as is evident by the lack of any serious policy breaches”, said Ms Wood. “From a monitoring and verification perspective PolicyPoint is also proving effective. There have been a few occasions where an employee has claimed they were unaware of a particular policy, but in response we have been able to point to their completion of the relevant policy module to determine that that was not the case.”

The PolicyPoint system has been well-received by employees, as Ms Wood explains: “PolicyPoint has gained widespread positive acceptance amongst staff, which is very pleasing”, she said. “The ongoing task of learning and being tested on Council policies is effective without placing an onerous burden on staff members. For the vast majority of our employees meeting their PolicyPoint obligations is a stress-free part of their job.”

Looking towards the future, Townsville City Council plans to stick with PolicyPoint as its policy management solution.

“PolicyPoint is doing exactly what we expected of it”, said Ms Wood. “Importantly the customer support we have received from PolicyPoint has been first-class from day one. The professionals at PolicyPoint are very tuned in to our needs and objectives and they have developed a strong relationship with the Council. In the immediate future there is potential to expand our use of PolicyPoint particularly with regards to training.”

Employers pull plug on social media

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An article by Clay Lucas in The Sydney Morning Herald provides examples of several workplaces that are banning their staff from accessing social media during working hours.

WORKPLACES are banning their staff from accessing social media during working hours, and trying to prevent them making comments about their employer after hours.

Across Australia, only 91 businesses have sought to formally ban their staff from accessing Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites as part of a workplace agreement.

The first enterprise deals featuring such bans began appearing in 2010, and increased five-fold in 2011, Fair Work Australia agreement searches show.

For the full story see Employers pull the plug on social media sites

Banning access to social media may be going a little too far.  We think it makes much more sense to have a good policy that clearly details how such technologies should be used appropriately in the workplace.  To round this out you should ensure you have a mechanism in place to confirm your people have received and understand the policy.

How social media can be a danger for employers

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An excellent quote from Tony Vernier, managing director of Australian Business Lawyers and Advisors appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald today in reference to social media policies:

“And you can’t just have a policy on the shelf – if people don’t know about it, it’s as if you don’t have a policy”

So not only do you need a social media policy, but you need to ensure the policy is known.  This is exactly what PolicyPoint does.

The article provides real world examples of where the lack of an effective mechanism to ensure such policies was known caused organisations and individuals considerable inconvenience and expense.  Had the organisations concerned been able to show proof that the staff had demonstrated knowledge of the policies the situations described would have been much easier to deal with, of course had they utilised such a mechanism the situations would be less likely to occur in the first place.

For the full story see How social media can be a danger for employers

11 ERM policy blunders to avoid

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Are your employees actually following the organisation’s ERM policy framework?

Part two of this series on policy management reveals 11 of the most common policy blunders that can scupper the effective implementation of ERM in your company.

1. Having no policies in place: Over the years we have come across more than a handful of executives that refuse to document policies and procedures. The overwhelming reason appears to be that they have had a bad experience where the company’s documented policies have not been properly implemented, and have subsequently been relied upon in legal claims by former staff members. For those that do not believe in documenting policies and procedures we wholeheartedly agree that you shouldn’t publish policies that you are not going to enforce. We also wholeheartedly believe that you can achieve the significant benefits outlined in part one of this series (seen here) if you take the time and effort to ensure effective policy implementation and maintenance.

2. Paper-based content distribution: We don’t see this too much these days, as most organisations make their policies available from a centralised publishing location such as an intranet or even a shared drive, where they can be assured (at least in theory) only the latest version of the policy is available to staff. The old model of distributing paper-based policies is fraught with danger as every policy change requires each and every distributed version to be updated. Of course, the updates rarely happen in practice with the end result being that an organisation has multiple, uncontrolled versions of policies and procedures floating around. All in all, a true recipe for chaos.

3. Lack of policy management systems and expertise: The degree of skill required to draft policies, and effectively implement and maintain policies, is commonly underestimated. Not only must policy managers be able to prioritise which policies need to be created, they must also be able to write in plain English, while conforming to organisational standards and styles. However, perhaps the biggest challenge for policy managers is to understand the organisation’s policy implementation process and to draft the policies so they can be effectively communicated, maintained and integrated with other organisational content. Many of the ‘policy blunders’ listed in this blog come down to a lack of policy management systems and expertise.

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… read the full article at insurancebusinessonline.com

Not sure your employees are complying with your policy framework? Contact PolicyPoint for a confidential review of options for ensuring employees regularly review – and demonstrate their understanding – of your ERM or broader compliance framework.

 

IBM bans Siri over concerns she has loose lips

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Siri has had her visitor badge revoked at IBM. Apparently she can’t keep quiet about what she hears.

Although IBM has allowed the iPhone 4S and other employee-owned consumer smartphones and tablets, like so many other companies barraged by their smartphone-toting workers, company chief information officer Jeanette Horan has said it’s been more of a migraine than a cost-saving solution.

“We found a tremendous lack of awareness as to what constitutes a risk,” Horan recently told MIT’s Technology Review. Now they’re trying to educate their employees.

Many voice-recognition services like Siri actually transmit the words spoken to them to a database, so they can get smarter, grow their vocabulary and learn different accents. But loose lips, however seemingly benign or even academic in nature, are counter to the secretive and competitive nature of business.

For decades, corporate information technology departments held the keys to mobile communication. They portioned out the devices that they configured with approved software and, to that end, controlled what got in and out of the company.

But now there’s a bit of a potluck approach to communications, with everyone from the CEO down bringing in their own device whether smartphone or tablet.

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Story available at smh.com.au. Worried about potential risks from your employees’ IT use? Contact PolicyPoint for more information on ensuring all staff – from board level down – is full aware of what they must and must not do to preserve your company’s IP.

 

NSW agencies push very hard for SaaS rollouts

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Several major New South Wales Government agencies have unveiled major and wide-ranging plans to imminently purchase Software as a Service-style IT solutions, in moves which have the potential to re-cast the dynamics of the perceived relationship between Australia’s public sector and the burgeoning class of SaaS-delivered IT packages.

Australia’s public sector has in the past notoriously been averse to purchasing IT solutions which are delivered as a service.

However, if the NSW Government has its way, much of this may be about to change. Over the past few months, several major NSW Government agencies have kicked off large IT purchasing initaitives which specifically highlight a preference for SaaS solutions, as opposed to on-premises deployments.

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Source: Delimiter.com.au

This is great news for companies like PolicyPoint, as we already provide our service on an SaaS basis  local government and enterprises seeking to embed a compliance and/or performance culture. As Delimiter notes,it is fascinating to see the NSW Government moving in the SaaS direction – and it will be worth re-examining their takeup of sofware-as-a-service over time. Contact us if you’d like a free demo of how PolicyPoint can make a difference to your organisation!

Compliance Officers Turn to Ad Agencies to Promote Ethics

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As regulators lean on companies to improve ethics compliance, businesses are increasingly hiring marketing agencies to help communicate the importance of ethics to their staffs. The hope is that by impressing upon workers the importance of a company’s reputation, they’ll get a better return on compliance efforts and expenses.

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A potentially lower-cost option is to use POLICYPOINT, the online service that ensures staff are consistently aware of their responsibilities. Want to know more? Contact PolicyPoint for a confidential discussion on gaining peace-of-mind that your employees are absolutely aware of their compliance obligations.

ASIC releases full report on retirement advice shadow

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ASIC today released the full findings of ‘shadow shopping’ research which examined financial advice given to people to help them plan for retirement.

The purpose of Report 279 Shadow shopping study of financial advice (REP 279) was to investigate the quality of retirement advice provided and people’s experience of obtaining
financial advice. ASIC’s research found that:

  • over a third of the advice examples were poor (39%)
  • there were only two examples of good quality advice (3%)
  • the majority of advice examples reviewed (58%) were adequate.

ASIC Commissioner Peter Kell said, ‘The results of ASIC’s shadow shopping research demonstrate that there is scope for significant improvement in the provision of good quality
retirement advice in Australia. Our research found there are several areas where the financial advice industry needs to lift its game.

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The full story is available at ASIC.

Are you confident your staff have the information they need to provide good quality advice? PolicyPoint provides an easy-to-use service that ensures staff regularly review your training and support material. Contact us for a confidential discussion on how we can help you get your staff up-to-speed today.

 

ASIC considers further advice research

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The report, “279 Shadow shopping study of financial advice”… found over a third or 39 per cent of the advice examples were poor.

The majority of advice examples reviewed, or 58 per cent, were adequate, the report said.

In the report, ASIC said there were a number of areas where the corporate regulator, Australia’s financial advisory sector and consumer groups could work together to improve the quality of advice.

“We will consider carrying out further shadow shopping research on financial advice in accordance with recommendation 2 of the PJC (Parliamentary Joint Committee) Inquiry into Financial Products and Services in Australia, released in November 2009,” the report said.

ASIC would also work with financial advice industry associations to provide workshops covering the more detailed findings of the report so that the concept of good-quality advice could be further refined and implemented, it said.

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Full story available at Investor Daily.

Are you confident your staff are providing quality advice? PolicyPoint offers an easy-to-use service for ensuring that your staff regularly review your training and support material – so that your training is always reflected in their actions. Contact PolicyPoint for more information on bringing your staff up-to-speed today.

 

When can you dismiss an employee for safety breaches?

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The law imposes two duties upon the employers which, at times, are at odds with each other. On one hand, employers must comply with WHS statutory obligations to keep their workplaces safe. On the other, an employer must also present a compelling and valid reason, follow a fair procedure and take into account the degree of risk involved in a contravention of safety rules, if it wishes to dismiss an employee on safety grounds.

The following recent case demonstrates Fair Work Australia’s (FWA) trend in emphasising the paramount importance of the duty of employer’s to keep their workers safe. But it is clear that dismissal will not always be an appropriate response, especially where the circumstances involves mitigating factors.

Chadwick v Woodside Energy Limited [2011] FWA 2890

On appeal to Fair Work Australia (FWA), Chadwick v Woodside Energy Ltd upheld the employer’s position in insisting on strict adherence to ‘golden rules’ relating to safety in relation to an employee with 15 years of service.

The Karratha Gas Plant site conducted activities making it a potentially hazardous environment. It operated a system described as an Integrated Safe System of Work (ISSoW) to mitigate the safety risks involved. The system managed hazards by requiring permits, underpinned by risk assessments, forming part of the company’s “Golden Rules”. A breach of the Golden Rules could result in termination.

Chadwick, an employee of 15 years, had been issued with a 7 day permit to perform hot work. The permit contained an express condition requiring Mr Chadwick to liaise with the Control Room Panel Operation before starting work on any day to ensure the work could be performed safely.

3 hours before the permit expired, Mr Chadwick and another arrived at site without the permit. They were aware the Permit Hut (where the necessary contact person worked) did not open for a further 2 hours. They did not contact a higher level of management to ask for permission to start work and did not liaise with the Panel Operator as required by the permit. He started work that day and later obtained a further permit, after the Permit Hut opened.

His employment was terminated for breaching the Golden Rule. This action was contested by Chadwick to FWA as being “harsh, unjust and unreasonable” in all the circumstances.

It was decided that the employee’s conduct was not a question of poor judgment in the starting and performance of work by the employee but rather a breach of an obligation to not start work. It was further accepted that the nature of Golden Rules did not lend itself for the giving of warnings when breached. It was clear that Mr Chadwick knew of the procedures but had deliberately breached the rules and that Woodside had enforced the policy consistently on previous occasions and had no other reasons for the dismissal. In the circumstances, Mr Chadwick’s dismissal was warranted.

What can we learn from this case?

The significance of the breach, and the real risk of significant and immediate harm that it created, outweighed the personal impact of dismissal on the employee in question.

  • Employers should take special care to ensure that particular systems in place for safety should be clear, taught to employees and understood by all.
  • It became a significant factor that previous breaches of the Golden Rules had resulted in termination as well.
  • Consistent and universal enforcement of the rules should be adhered to by employers.
  • Finally, FWA will also look to the personal circumstances of an employee to help determine whether his or her termination would unjustly create difficult circumstances for them as result. As an employer, please review an employee’s history with the company, as well as any other hardships that employee may be in before making a final decision.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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This story is available in full at Mondaq.

Are you confident your organisation is up to date with changes to the regulatory framework? Contact PolicyPoint for more information on creating an up-to-date policy library and ensuring staff know – and understand – their obligations.