Co-operative Assistance Network Limited

Human Resources Development Support Package: Policies and Procedures

We use a diagnostic tool to identify

• What policies the customer already has
• Which of those they are confident are legally compliant
• Which are fit for use
• Which are up-to-date
• How good their review process is
• What policies are missing
• What missing policies they actually need

This diagnostic tool covers HR matters but can also be used to address governance and business issues simultaneously. This normally takes over an hour and can take two. This is offered as an initial free consultation.

The service offered is honed to meet identified needs, in order of priority and budget available. There are three products available for each need identified and these can be mixed and matched. These choices are:

1. CAN looks at individual policies the purchaser has drafted themselves – a 1 hour exercise that provides feedback and recommendations that deal with legal compliance, fitness for purpose, clarity, and (optionally) fit with co-op principles.
2. CAN looks on the “shelf” for a policy that we have developed and are entitled to supply, dust it off, check it for appropriateness and up-to-date-ness, tweak and send. This is a 0.5 hour exercise. If we have nothing appropriate on the shelf that is our fault and we will develop this product at our own expense. The purchaser must take responsibility for making sure that this meets their needs.
3. CAN produces policies (starting from our models) that precisely meet the needs of the purchaser, building upon our knowledge of them, their constitution, governance and management systems and their business. This is the Rolls Royce service and costs 2 hours per policy or procedure but we back this with our professional liability insurance rather than hide behind disclaimers.

The real advantage for the purchaser is being able to use the three services on a mix and match basis, to pay after the event (if satisfied), rather than subscribe in advance, and to go at their own pace on agreed priorities, learning from our one-to-one process as they go and establishing a mechanism for review rather than the far simpler and cheaper but potentially dangerous download-print-never understand-forget-allow to go out of date.

The health warning is that the total cost of the exercise is usually hundreds of pounds and can go over a thousand pounds.