Policy is a legal, ethical, and operational tool that sets expectations for how your organization functions. It guides employee behavior, ensures compliance with federal and state laws, and establishes work standards. Policies can be formal or informal, written or unwritten, and public or private.
Creating effective policies takes time, collaboration, and thoughtfulness. Often, the best policy designs are those that are created and reworked iteratively with input from all stakeholders. Policy should be designed with flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, like increased climate change risks or new infectious diseases. Flexibility also helps minimize the impact of missteps or unforeseen consequences. For example, an organization may have a backup plan to mitigate the effects of a missed vaccine rollout or a failed hiring process.
Good policymakers understand how to identify potential issues and solutions, create a framework for collaboration, and foster consensus. They use a combination of data, research, and stakeholder input to develop policy solutions. And they know that even the best policy design isn’t perfect. Sometimes, government leaders and policy makers struggle to implement their vision. They might be blocked by rigid bureaucracies or outdated laws, or they could face resistance from their own constituency groups (think: labor unions blocking pension reform). Occasionally, frontline workers stray from the letter of the law and break its spirit (e.g., a public agency steering contracts toward favored vendors). Policy scholars call this “malicious compliance” and it’s why good policy design should account for informal norms as well as formal rules.