What Does an Effective Policy Management System Look Like? Just Ask Santa!

How do Santa’s elves build all those toys in the workshop so efficiently? And how do Santa and his reindeer deliver all those Christmas presents to children throughout the world on time, year after year?

They follow the “Code of the Elves,” as explained in the movie, “Buddy the Elf”:

1. Treat every day like Christmas.
2. There’s room for everyone on the nice list.
3. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

Leader of the most efficient organization in the world, Santa knows a thing or two about streamlining processes and maximizing productivity. Just like any other well-run organization, Santa’s workshop has policies and procedures that everyone — elves, reindeer, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus included — must follow, and they have ConvergePoint’s Policy Management Software to manage their processes.

How does the Policy Management Software work? Let’s show how the existing Code of the Elves was created as our example:

1. It’s crunch time around the workshop, and Santa notices that some of the elves are exhibiting signs of stress and unhappiness. He decides to create a policy to encourage cheerfulness and boost morale. He enlists the Master Elf to draft the policy.
2. Because the Policy Management Software is built on Microsoft SharePoint, Master Elf writes the policy in Microsoft Word and uploads it to the Creation Site for review and approval.
3. It takes several days for Master Elf to get the wording just right, but the Policy Management Software always pulls up the latest version, while keeping track of version history, notes and discussions Master Elf had with Mr. Claus. Once it’s ready, Master Elf chooses a workflow — in this case, one that will go to Mr. and Mrs. Claus next — for the new policy.
4. Email notifications are automatically sent to Mr. and Mrs. Claus, who review and approve the policy.
5. Once the policy has been approved, it’s automatically published to the Distribution Site.
6. There, all of the elves can search for and review the policy. Because of the specific workflow Master Elf chose and because the policy applies only to them, only the elves — and not Santa’s reindeer — can see it.
7. From there, Santa wants to ensure the thousands of elves building toys in the workshop have read and understood the policy, so it automatically moves to the Acknowledgment Site. Santa again enlists Master Elf to create a custom quiz to test the elves on the policy.
8. All of the elves receive an email alert notifying them about the quiz, which they have a given amount of time to take, pass and sign off on.
9. Meanwhile, Santa tracks how many elves have passed and now understand the new policy, based on the overview he gets on the real-time dashboard and the data compiled in the real-time reports.
10. Master Elf gives the policy an expiration date, December 26, so that after Christmas, Santa and the elves can review and evaluate the policy’s effectiveness, and then renew it before the New Year.

From ensuring all the toys produced are of the highest quality to seeing that his sleigh and reindeer are kept in tip-top shape for his annual run, Santa has hundreds of policies for his elves that he manages in one single system, ConvergePoint’s Policy Management Software. With so much to do and so many children to make happy, Santa wouldn’t be able to do his job without the help of his elves and a robust policy management system.