How outdated are your policies?
One of the challenges with a Unified Communication (UC) deployment/strategy is that many of the “official” corporate policies have not evolved to the changing technology landscape. Quite often we see policies that have been left untouched for years. For this reason, I always include Human Resources and a legal representative in my discovery meetings as it is important to identify any potential roadblocks up front that could be an impairment to the project. It is also important to educate HR and legal about current trends and impending technology changes that may impact employee behaviour.
Built-in (no additional cost) features to your new system upgrade may contravene corporate policies/Canadian laws regarding the use of private information. For instance, the ability to “record-on-demand” phone calls at your desk, and send the audio file to your inbox. This feature should not necessarily be available to everyone in your corporation. In addition, employees that do have this feature need to understand the policies/laws pertaining to it; for example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) disallows credit card information from being recorded.
Are your policies an “Urban Legend”?
When we start working with a client, we find out a lot about their organization’s ability to communicate acceptable behaviours and business practices. More often than not, the understanding of corporate policies are more aligned with urban legends than reality. In a recent client engagement of ours, teleworking was not sanctioned by corporate. Despite this, some managers thought it was approved, and were allowing employees to telework.
In a nutshell
This fast paced technology landscape will make it be difficult for any HR and/or legal departments to prepare themselves for the next new trend or guess how employee(s) might use the next new cool application. However, it is their responsibility to stay engaged and simply not assume that policies created decades ago will accommodate today’s changing world.
Next steps:
- Review your corporate policies – such as your Technology Usage Policy (Email, Mobile, Remote Access), Emergency Policy, etc. – and decide whether they can be held up under scrutiny in today’s high-tech environment.
- Initiate a formalized process between HR, legal and IT that establishes quarterly reviews. Technology is always changing and evolving – corporate policies should reflect these changes and always be in sync.
- Communicate policy changes to the rest of the organization and have staff acknowledge receipt and that they understand the consequences of non-compliance.
Stay tuned for my next post on UC Applications.
Emily Nielsen,
UC Specialist & President of Nielsen IT Consulting Inc.
UC Strategic Planning Blog Series – Table of Contents
Having a plan is the first step to leadership. Follow our eight week blog series to learn key actionable items that are crucial to developing an effective UC Strategy for your company.
- Part 1a: UC Considerations
- Part 1b: UC Considerations Continued
- Part 2: The Importance of a Unified Communications Strategic Plan
- Part 3: The Discovery Process
- Part 4: Defining Your Vision
- Part 5: Identifying Corporate Requirements
- Part 6: Identifying UC Applications
- Part 7: Infrastructure Assessment
- Part 8: Final Thoughts
