PRACTICAL POLICY GUIDE
Policy vs Procedure: Differences and a Business Example
Published by Policy Logic ·
A policy sets the direction and responsibilities. A procedure explains the steps people follow. A record shows what happened. Keeping those jobs distinct makes a small business management system easier to use and maintain.
The difference at a glance
| Document | Main question | Customer complaints example |
|---|---|---|
| Policy | What are we committed to, and who is responsible? | We listen to complaints, investigate fairly and use the findings to improve our service. |
| Procedure | What should somebody do next? | Log the complaint, acknowledge it, appoint a reviewer, investigate and communicate the outcome. |
| Record | What happened, and what evidence do we have? | A dated complaint log showing the issue, investigation, response and agreed actions. |
These are useful working distinctions. Your organisation may use different document names, and one document can contain both a policy statement and the arrangements for putting it into practice.
A worked example: a small service business
Imagine a consultancy with one director and four employees. Its quality policy says it will agree the brief with the customer, check work before delivery and respond to feedback. Those are commitments that should remain stable even when the team changes its project-management software.
The supporting procedure identifies who records the agreed brief, when a colleague checks the work, where amendments are logged and who approves the final issue. The procedure can change when the team changes its tools without rewriting the business’s overall intentions.
The evidence might be an approved brief, completed check and issue history. A policy saying “we check all work” is less useful if nobody knows who performs the check or where the result is kept.
What belongs in a business policy?
- A clear purpose and scope: the activities, people and locations covered.
- Commitments the business can actually meet.
- Named roles for ownership, implementation and approval.
- An explanation of the main arrangements, or a link to supporting procedures.
- A version, review date and a way to report concerns or suggest changes.
For health and safety, HSE describes a policy in three parts: intentions, responsibilities and arrangements. That illustrates why a short statement on its own may not explain how the work is managed. See HSE’s guide to writing a health and safety policy.
When should you split out a procedure?
Consider a separate procedure when someone needs a repeatable sequence, a decision point, a form, an escalation route or clear instructions for an unusual event. Keep it close to the work: an induction procedure should help a manager complete an induction, rather than repeat the training policy’s general ambitions.
Keep documents together when splitting them would force people to search across several files for a simple task. A small team may find one short document with clearly labelled sections more practical than an extensive hierarchy.
A quick check before publishing
- Ask a colleague to identify what the business promises.
- Ask who does what and how they would carry out the process.
- Check what evidence would demonstrate that the process was followed.
- Remove duplicated wording that would need changing in several places.
- Check that links point to the current supporting documents.
Use the policy register template to connect your policy to its supporting procedures, and the version-control guide to manage revisions.
Start with your business arrangements
The Policy Logic builder asks about your business and practical arrangements, then assembles an editable draft. It does not create evidence that an arrangement exists. Review the wording against the way your organisation actually works before approval.