It is widely recognized that companies sink a great deal of what might have otherwise been used for capital investments, shareholder dividends or employee raises into the setup, training and maintenance of their many systems used to keep the business humming. Wouldn’t you love to redirect some of those funds to your bank account or benefits package?! Hmpf…wishful thinking.

This is not another post about consolidating the management and oversight of multiple processes under this one user-friendly and inexpensive umbrella in order to generate cost savings (although that is a great idea). This post is a tell-it-like-it-is acknowledgement with a word of caution and bit of advice about how you and your organization could stave off some of those common system-related costs better suited for use on other (hopefully more desirable and rewarding) purposes.

The acknowledgement
Very rarely do policyIQ customers leave the policyIQ community because they’ve found an attractive replacement. policyIQ is broadly applicable, user-friendly and inexpensive.  If your organization has successfully configured and launched policyIQ, you’re more likely to expand and extend your efficiency and cost savings to other areas than you are to stop using policyIQ. The greatest risk to successful sustainability of your process streamlining, content management, analysis and oversight in policyIQ is employee turnover.

Turnover. Does that surprise you? It’s simple, really…

We do what we know. Our past experiences shape our future behaviors and actions. People are naturally averse to change. So, if your incoming CFO, Internal Audit Director, IT Systems Administrator or other internal owner of policyIQ does not have previous experience with policyIQ and is used to meeting expectations by different means, he might be inclined to lead the organization to adopt the method or system that was comfortable to him from his last gig.

Is your apple cart at risk of being shaken up?

I’m not asking if you think that your VP of Finance is about to exit. I’m asking about your preparedness to seamlessly maintain productivity in the event that your policyIQ champion moves on to a new opportunity. Do you have more than one internal policyIQ guru or go-to person? Do you know all of the ways that your organization is using policyIQ, why it was selected (which benefits pushed policyIQ to the top of the list), and why it was configured in such a way? If you answered “no” to any of these questions, then you are at high risk of incurring the productivity, time, effort and cost setbacks associated with another new system and process implementation. With a little homework, you can close this gap and significantly shrink the target and odds of realizing this risk.

Tips and tools to set yourself up for a smooth transition

1. More than one guru – as mentioned above, it is certainly helpful and more secure to have more than one person familiar with your application of policyIQ.

2. Put it in writing (or document in an online policyIQ Reference Guide) – Another way to increase the probability of successful hand-off is to have your policyIQ configuration decisions, supporting procedures and references captured in an organized and accessible medium. Check out our Help guide page with guidance and a template for creating your own policyIQ Manual or Reference Guide.

Don’t stop there—refer users to it and let it be the living governing document for all of your policyIQ content.

Turn the greatest risk into the greatest opportunity!

We want to help with the hand-off and welcome new administrators.
If you anticipate or find your organization in transition, let us know! Many organizations find that the changing of the guard presents an opportunity to take a look at how they are using policyIQ, where they might be able to more fully utilize its capabilities and to update the site’s Setup to better reflect the changing and incoming needs of the business. We are happy to host an online policyIQ “orientation” for your newcomers. We will recommend relevant training materials and can help bring diverse parties together on the best practices for sharing the value of policyIQ for multiple purposes.

If nothing else, feel free to lean on us to help with the transition and to keep your business moving along.