We’ll say it again: The process by which your company establishes, manages, and implements their policies can be as or more important than the policy itself. But why? Because implementing whatever policy you ultimately land on will be challenging and require a variety of tough decisions and trade-offs. If you don’t have solid buy-in and support for your safety policy, then it will likely end up compromised to the point where it becomes irrelevant to decision-making. Using a robust stakeholder engagement process to develop your policy will build the necessary buy-in over time. It will also help you identify implementation barriers and ongoing internal opponents. Establishing effective accountability mechanisms like a steering committee will help protect your safety promise to consumers during implementation.  

Crafting an effective policy is both art and science. Critically, it should be clearly linked to the company’s mission, purpose, values, principles, or similarly authoritative documentation. In this blog we give you some guidance in the form of tips that are drawn from our decades of experience. If you’re interested in reading about the three elements we think are important to have in your ingredient safety policy, we cover that in part 1 of this series. Want to skip ahead and get the inside scoop on what kinds of elements we think need to be included in a credible safety program? Check out part 3.

Once you’ve been through the process of creating a new or revising an existing ingredient safety policy for a company you’ll quickly realize that there are some things you really wish you knew before starting. Fear not! Having gone through this process a number of times for companies in a variety of industries we have some tips to help avoid some of the headaches that come with this complicated but critical element.

Tip 1. Do your due diligence

This may seem obvious but we still see painful omissions all the time: take the time to build a firm sense of what has been done in the past and what is being done now related to safety in your company. You have to have a strong understanding of the current state in your company BEFORE you start the process of crafting and implementing a new policy. While knowledge about what’s already in place with respect to ingredient safety has clear utility, an understanding of WHO may be impacted by a new or changing policy, and what their position (i.e. support, opposition, concerns, etc.) may be is often more important - see our next tip.

Tip 2. Craft an effective process

Crafting your process involves asking and answering lots of questions. How will the policy be crafted, by who, why, and when? How will disputes be handled during the process? Who has responsibility for drafting? How will stakeholders provide input and feedback? How will a final policy be formally adopted by the company? For many companies, this includes a group of senior executives “voting” or otherwise confirming that the company will adopt the policy on a specific date during a regular business review or board meeting. What if the policy is rejected? Feel free to reach out if you want detailed guidance on this one.

Tip 3. Plan for implementation in advance

People may agree to something in concept or abstract but feel very differently about it when they are responsible for taking action or making decisions based on it. You should determine who will need what information, training, support, tools, guidance, etc. for implementing the policy before it is formally adopted. Have a sense of potential costs and trade-offs. Anticipate places or functions where the policy could have unintended consequences. Failing to have good answers to questions/reservations can sink a policy at the finish line.  

Tip 4. Celebrate your new policy

Once your policy is formally adopted by the company you should celebrate in an appropriate way. In our experience, that includes some “big” and some smaller aspects. Go big by taking multiple opportunities to get the word out across the company. You want people to know that you have a new safety policy. Highlight the ways it is going to make their work easier and help the company. You should also host at least one small in-person gathering for key stakeholders involved in your policy process. Thank them for their help, laugh off instances of friction, and show your gratitude by providing the food and drink. Trust us, this kind of thing can go a long way when it comes to creating good will and building social capital for the hard work ahead.

This article is part of our series on the fundamentals of credible ingredient and material safety programs for consumer goods companies:

Part 1: Your policy is your safety promise

Part 2: Process tips for how to create a safety policy

Part 3: Company ingredient & material safety programs must have's

Part 4: Building & using a restricted substances list (RSL)

Part 5: Why you should invest in ingredient safety testing