Day 7: Write a Policy Document From a Brief
The Concept
HR policy documents occupy an unusual position in most organisations: they are essential, they are rarely read, and the writing of them is dreaded by nearly everyone tasked with producing them. The process typically involves finding an existing policy from a previous employer or a generic template, editing it minimally, running it through legal, and publishing it with the assumption that employees will not read it unless something goes wrong. Most of the time, that assumption is correct. When something does go wrong — a grievance, a tribunal claim, a public dispute — the policy's quality matters enormously, and the gap between what it says and how people actually understood it becomes the central problem.
This cycle persists not because HR professionals do not know what makes a good policy, but because the writing process is slow, legalistic, and unsatisfying. Starting from a blank page and producing a structured, clear, legally-aware document takes hours. That time pressure consistently produces either procrastination or recycled documents that may no longer reflect current legislation or the organisation's actual practice.
Why Policy Language Matters
Policies that people cannot understand do not govern behaviour. This is the central truth that most policy documents ignore. If a flexible working policy requires an employee to read three paragraphs of legal definitions before understanding whether they are eligible, most employees will not read it until they want to make a request — at which point confusion generates calls to HR, inconsistent manager decisions, and a sense that the organisation is being deliberately opaque about something it should make straightforward.
Plain language is not a stylistic preference. It is a functional requirement. A policy written at a level that an employee can understand without a legal background is more likely to be read, more likely to be applied consistently, and more likely to hold up in a dispute because there is less room for "I didn't understand what it meant." The plain-English summary that today's prompt produces is not a substitute for the formal document — it is the communication layer that sits in front of it, ensuring that the formal document is reached only when the situation genuinely requires it.
The Anatomy of a Good Policy Document
Good policy documents share a consistent structure for a reason: consistency reduces the cognitive load of finding information quickly. An employee who wants to know whether a policy applies to them should be able to go to the Scope section. A manager who wants to know what they are responsible for should be able to go to Manager Responsibilities. A process that requires multiple steps should be numbered, not described in narrative form. These are not bureaucratic conventions — they are design decisions that make a document usable under pressure.
The sections in today's prompt — Purpose, Scope, Policy Statement, Eligibility, Process, Manager Responsibilities, Employee Responsibilities, and Review Date — represent a minimum viable structure for any operational HR policy. Some policies require more (a redundancy policy needs a separate section on consultation process; a disciplinary policy needs a section on appeals). Most policies need at least these eight elements to be usable. AI generates the structure consistently so you can focus your attention on the content rather than the architecture.
What Legal and Compliance Review Still Requires a Human
AI is not a substitute for legal advice, and today's prompt is explicit about that. The policy draft it produces is a starting point, not a final document. Certain sections require professional review before publication: anything that relates to statutory entitlements (parental leave, sick pay, redundancy), anything that creates a contractual obligation, anything that touches protected characteristics under equality legislation, and anything that varies from statutory minimum provisions in either direction.
The note on legal review that the prompt requests is not a disclaimer — it is a practical guide to where you need to focus your legal budget. Not every clause needs a solicitor's eye. The process steps, the manager responsibilities, the plain-English summary — these can be reviewed and approved by a competent HR professional. The sections that interact with statute or contract require someone with the appropriate qualification. AI compresses the drafting time so that the legal review, when it happens, is focused on the elements that genuinely need it rather than basic structure and language.
From Brief to Document in a Single Session
The most useful habit today's exercise installs is the brief. Before you can run the prompt, you have to write six to ten bullet points describing what the policy needs to cover. That exercise — the brief — is where most policy projects stall, because nobody has made explicit decisions about eligibility, process, and constraints. The brief forces those decisions. Once the brief exists, the policy document is a formatting and language task, which is exactly what AI does well. Your intellectual contribution is the brief; AI contributes the structure and the language; legal review contributes the compliance sign-off. That division of labour makes policy writing sustainable at scale.
Prompt of the day
Copy this into your AI tool and replace any bracketed placeholders.
Prompt
You are an employment law-aware HR policy writer. I need to draft a [POLICY TYPE, e.g. 'Flexible Working Policy' / 'Expenses Policy' / 'Parental Leave Policy'] for [COMPANY NAME], a [BRIEF COMPANY DESCRIPTION, e.g. 'UK-based professional services firm with 150 employees']. Here is the brief for what the policy needs to cover: [DESCRIBE THE KEY POINTS IN 3-8 BULLET POINTS — e.g. who it applies to, the core entitlement or rule, any approval process, what happens if it is misused] Jurisdiction: [COUNTRY OR REGION, e.g. 'England and Wales'] Please produce: 1. A complete policy document with the following sections: Purpose, Scope, Policy Statement, Eligibility, Process (step by step), Manager Responsibilities, Employee Responsibilities, and Review Date 2. A plain-English summary (maximum 150 words) that an employee can read in two minutes and understand without legal training 3. A list of three to five questions a line manager is likely to ask when this policy goes live, with a suggested FAQ answer for each 4. A note on which sections require legal or compliance review before the policy is published, and why Write in clear, plain English. Avoid legal jargon in the main document body. Use numbered lists for any process steps. Do not invent entitlements beyond what the brief specifies.
Your 15-minute task
Choose one policy your organisation currently lacks, has outdated, or gets inconsistent questions about. Write a brief in bullet-point form — six to ten lines covering who it applies to, what the entitlement or rule is, and any known constraints. Fill in the placeholders and run the prompt. Then send the plain-English summary to one line manager and ask them if it answers the questions they typically receive.
Expected win
A complete, structured policy document draft with all standard sections, a plain-English two-minute summary for employees, a ready-to-use manager FAQ, and a clear note on which sections need legal sign-off before publication.
Power user tip
Once you have the draft, run this follow-up: 'Now write a one-page manager guide for rolling out this policy. Include: how to introduce it to the team, the three most sensitive scenarios a manager might face when applying it, and how to handle a request that falls outside the policy's scope. Write it in a tone that assumes the manager has good intentions but limited HR knowledge.' A policy without a manager guide is a rule without a process — the guide is what makes it real.