THE COST OF COPY AND PASTE

At OML we do a lot of HR policy work for clients, from developing policy to updating policy manuals. The aim is always to align policies with the labour laws of the country our clients operate and good practice. Recently, we reviewed a number of HR manuals with the aim to identify some trends to help us with future client work on policy. I decided to look at the policy questionnaire and discovered that about 30% of our clients stated that they copied and pasted their original HR manual from another organization or acquired the template online. This is not news as many organisations and businesses practice this method. However, it becomes a problem when the organization fails to thoroughly look at the details as well as the cost implications associated with the terms and benefits they are copying. For clarification, by terms, we are referring to terms and conditions employment that are binding in law in addition to HR practices that cost the business money.

In my analysis I found for example in the area of attendance management that, there were a lot of variations in the types of leave offered and the duration of the leave in some cases far exceeded the normal practice across sectors in Africa. For example, on average most organisations offer between three (3) to five (5) days for compassionate leave in addition to annual leave in the private sector. But I found in some of the policies we reviewed that about 25% of our clients were offering between seven (7) to fourteen (14) days' compassionate leave. In further investigations, it became apparent that some of the clients had copied and pasted HR policy manuals from organisations operating in the public and not-for-profit sector. Organisations operating in these sectors tend to be overly generous with leave, sick pay, allowance and benefits than in the private sector. For example, non-for-profit organisations are usually generous with their fringe benefits in order to attract and retain staff.

It is not a crime for a company to benchmark the HR practices of another organization in order to remain competitive or as a starting point as long as the organisation is aware of the cost associated with the benchmarking. It is important to closely look at what goes into an HR manual under entitlements, especially binding fringe benefits that are included in the labour laws of the country you operate. This is important because once it’s been offered to an employee and an agreement has been signed, its binding and the only way it can be changed is if both parties agree to reduce or modify the terms. By this I mean an organisation cannot offer employees thirty-five (35) days’ holidays per year and then decide to change it to fifteen (15) days per year without the agreement of the employee.

In our analysis, we discovered that some of our clients were losing between $1,500 USD - $10,000 USD per employee per year for just adopting the leave practices of other companies without considering the cost impact to the business. For example, leave such as compassionate leave, annual leave, paid casual leave, sick leave, exam leave, study leave and special leave.

In conclusion, my recommendation is that when benchmarking your HR policy against another organisation’s HR policy manual, review the terms and procedures well, by considering the cost of what you want to offer employees in terms benefits as well as the culture you want to create, structure of the organization, the industry your organization operates, the needs of the organization and the overall HR strategy, systems and processes.

If you would like to know about our HR policy development and review services do contact us. Alternatively, you can also attend our implementing HR policies and procedures training course to learn how to develop an HR policy specific to your organisation’s practices.