As
They Live and Breathe
Policy
and Procedures
(P&Ps) are the foundation of an agency. They can be equated to the
Constitution- a figurative living and breathing document. As laws are
amended
and created, court decisions are made, issues arise, and society
changes, our
P&Ps need to mirror these changes as well. With the personnel
crisis that
most of Communication Centers across the country are facing, updating
and
amending P&Ps have understandably fallen by the wayside with
priority going
to recruiting and training. However, it is important that time is
taken, or
budget monies are set aside to conquer this task.
When
I first started with
my agency, we were fortunate enough at the time to have “in-service”
training
for an hour every week. It was a valuable time to not only push out
training
but also have team building exercises and perform administrative tasks.
One of
the administrative tasks we did was to physically pull out our
ridiculously
large, heavy book of P&Ps and remove the old policies and replace
them with
the updated policies, then review the changes. Looking back, although
it seemed
tedious at the time it was extremely beneficial. There were zero
excuses why
the new policy was not followed and the potential claim of “I wasn’t
aware of
that” was negated. Although most agencies have moved out of the dark
ages and
moved to an online format for P&Ps, reviewing them is important.
Why
Should P&Ps Be Reviewed?
The
most conspicuous
reason to ensure that P&Ps are current is for liability reasons. If
your
agency were to end up in court, one of the first things that an
attorney will
attack not necessarily of the policy itself, but its validity. The date
that a
policy was last reviewed and revised goes to the validity and
credibility of
the policy. For example, the agency may have a new chief and updated
their chain-of-command
policy, but the division’s policies still have the chief listed from
two
administrations ago. Another prominent reason is to ensure that the
division’s
policies are in line with the agency’s policies. As
laws and standards change, an agency’s
P&Ps need to mirror that change. For example, the American Heart
Association changed their CPR protocol in 2018 from the
traditional
ABC
(Airway, Breathing, Compressions) sequence in 2010 to the CAB
(Compressions,
Airway, Breathing) sequence. Agencies who AHA certified should have
changed
their P&Ps to mirror this new sequence.
In
a recent conversation
with a manager of a small communications center, she told me that the
agency’s
lawyer said that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing not to have P&Ps
because
it could be beneficial as well. I was initially confused by the
statement. Then
after the explanation and a brief contemplation on my part, I could see
the
lawyer’s point in that the agency cannot be held liable for a standard
if there
are none in place. However, the agency can be held liable on the
principle of
strict liability or negligence. Strict liability torts stem from acts
that
depart from a reasonable standard of care and cause an injury.
Negligence torts
stem from the inaction that a PST has the directed or moral to do. In
other
words, an agency can be held liable for actions or inactions that your
employee
took that is “common” protocol for the industry. The burden would then
fall on
the agency to prove that they had trained the person properly, had a
method for
the employee to refer to proper protocol, had a method of monitoring
behavior
performance, etc., in order not to be held liable. However, simply be
having
current and accurate P&Ps can insulate the agency from liability.
The question
is to either invest time and/or money into creating P&Ps up front
or take a
gamble on when (not if) there will be a civil lawsuit and how much will
be paid
out.
The
Telephone Game
Remember
the telephone
game? By the time the original message got down to the end of the line,
the
whole messaged changed. This is the same for an agency that is relying
on
seasoned employees to train new employees without P&Ps. Although it
would
be impossible for P&Ps or a Call Handling Guide to cover every
possible
scenario otherwise it would be a mile long and would have to be updated
daily,
however, P&Ps provide a baseline for conduct. With P&Ps, an
agency can
move away from “that’s the way we’ve always done it” to “this is the
way we do
it.” With a clear written standard of conduct and performance training
is
simplified, and comprehensive, and streamlined. Everyone gets the same
information and not a trainer’s personal preference or their own rules.
Lack of
knowledge is nullified. Additionally, everyone is discipline uniformly
and the
claim of biasedness is quashed in comparison with no P&Ps. There is
a
standard of conduct for employees to follow and it is clear what is
expected of
them.
Although
the task of
either creating or reviewing P&Ps can be overwhelming, it is
abundantly
clear that the benefits outweigh the negatives.