Why does policy trump service?
A policy is a plan of action to guide decisions and actions. The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals. The policy process includes the identification of different alternatives, such as programs or spending priorities, and choosing among them on the basis of the impact they will have. Policies can be understood as political, management, financial, and administrative mechanisms arranged to reach explicit goals (Information retrieved electronicallyhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif from Wikipedia).
When someone is in "charge" of policy, what is their role? Is policy something that is debatable? Can it be changed at a person's whim? Is a policy individual? If it is a "plan of action to guide decisions and actions," then policy is individual–based and personal, somewhat.
If you call a hotel or conference center and their policy is to charge your credit card for one night's stay to reserve the room, is it the reservation–specialist's right to waive such a policy?
I come up with these questions because I am attending a conference/workshop later this summer put on by the Michigan Association of State and Federal Program Specialists. The organization will be paying me a stipend to attend, which I will turn in to my company. My company will pay for the hotel room (and be reimbursed by the stipend check). After the person asked for my credit card number to reserve the room, I explained this to the reservation–specialist—who then checked with Brad who is setting up the conference for the resort.
"Our company policy is that you must pay for one night with your credit card. We can reimburse it to you if you bring a check for both nights," she told me.
I told her to never mind, I might just not attend the conference. Sure, maybe a bit of a bad attitude ... but, come on. I'm with a company who is part of the organization that is putting on the event ... Why does policy trump service? It just doesn't make any sense to me at all. Yeah, I could go ahead and put it on my credit card, but that's not really the point!
Cheers!
1 comment:
During my 15 years as a human resource manager in differing union environments (UAW and Teamsters) I was the Policy King. I wrote, interpreted, applied, made exception to, re-wrote and threw policy in the trash.
Good policy is derived from having experiences within the business environment and is usually drafted in response to a specific need brought to light by these experiences. A policy is typically an attempt to better define future behaviors that are necessary to conduct business in such a way as to remain profitable, comply with law, ensure safety or quality, etc.
My guess is that they would like to have some sort of commitment by the individual attending the conference that they are actually going to show. They want to be able to hold one individual responsible for the cost of the room should it happen to be empty for that first night.
No question your intentions are good and you will use the room as planned. If they knew you personally and were aware of your character first hand then I would think that they would then have the ability or more importantly wilingess to deviate from policy.
They don't know you from Adam. Most folks would call and cancel if they were unable to attend, giving them the ability to fill the room. Some others would not and cost the hotel financially. Sorry, sounds reasonable to me.
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