Company Policies: Less Can Be More

Starting a new business is exciting and time consuming. The exciting part is materializing your new idea into a business and ultimately into a profit. The time consuming parts are usually boring; choosing the entity type, forming the entity, and writing the company policies, etc. It’s much easier to borrow policies from other businesses; owners ask themselves – “why re-invent the wheel?”

The wheel does not need to be re-invented but it does need to be modified to fit. Having company policies in place are essential for every business. When a business has written policies regarding employees, vendors or customers this can protect not only the business but the other parties as well.

All too often new business owners will cut and paste policies from other companies or “do-it-yourself” software. These resources can be helpful to identify the types of policies a business should have in place but cut and paste without further review is a potential for increased liability. Adopting company policies that are unique to your business are important. When a business adopts policies that are too cumbersome for the business to follow to a “T”; this opens the door to liability issues.

Managing potential liability is an aspect of risk management. Even if a new business cannot afford to have an attorney draft all of the company policies, at the least an attorney should be consulted to review the policies to ensure the policies fit the business. Company policies should fit the business in size, industry and in other arenas.

Posted by Jess Bailey at 4/22/2010 11:23 AM
Categories: Company Policy, Risk Management, Liability, New Business Owners
Tags: Company Policy Entrepreneur New Business Owners
 

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