Where We’re At
Policies and processes take a long time to get right, and making them easy to understand takes longer still. At Spectra, we’ve been working out how we can create functional, accessible policies that serve both employer and employee equitably, and which are also fit for purpose as an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation. We’re nowhere near the end of the journey, but we’ve made a start by:
- Hiring an Impact Lead who can focus on reviewing these documents annually and keep up to date on best practice
- Ensuring the formatting of all policies is consistent
- Clearly stating the dates of last review
- Starting to remove jargon where possible and simplify language – so far, you can see this most clearly in our GDPR and Health and Safety policies.
- Being as transparent as possible by sharing this journey and learning publicly
The Challenges
Policies can be really tricky to simplify, and short of including extensive glossaries with each one, there is sometimes little we can do to totally remove legal-speak from certain documents. But if we want our policies to serve the people we work with effectively, we need to come up with a way to make them easier to understand, so that people feel they can actually engage with them.
What We’re Working On
- Considering how to make policies more visual.
- Working out how we can draw out the essential information that is relevant to employees from each policy, and link to full documents where we feel we are unable to shorten and simplify as much as we’d like.
- Speaking to our industry peers and learning from experts such as Ort Gallery and Dark Matter Labs.
- Following our Board Meeting in July, we have decided to add the following policies to our roster: Ethical Fundraising, Disciplinary/Grievance/Whistleblowing/Complaints, Financial, and a Modern Slavery Statement.
As a small but mighty team, this is our starting point. We plan to share our successes and the pitfalls of this journey as we go, and if you’d like to read our existing policies as they stand they can be found below.