Custom Policies
Custom Policies are the policies employees must read and acknowledge.
Where: My Team › Settings › Documents & Compliance › Custom Policies You need: the policy manage right
Custom Policies or Policy Center?
The two sit next to each other and the difference is what is required of the employee:
| What it is | |
|---|---|
| Custom Policies | Policies employees must read and acknowledge |
| Policy Center | Handbook and policy documents your team can read |
Put simply: Policy Center is reference, Custom Policies is obligation. A handbook people consult when they need it belongs in Policy Center. A code of conduct everyone must confirm they have read belongs here.
If you are unsure, ask whether you would ever need to prove a specific person saw it. If yes, it is a custom policy.
Why acknowledgement is the point
An unacknowledged policy is hard to rely on. If a policy is ever cited — in a disciplinary case, a dispute, or an audit — the question is not whether the policy existed but whether that employee was made aware of it.
The acknowledgement record answers that per person, with a date. That is the whole reason to put a policy here rather than emailing it round.
This matters most for the policies underpinning disciplinary action. Enforcing a rule someone never acknowledged is a weak position.
Tracking who has not acknowledged
Treat outstanding acknowledgements as a queue, not a statistic:
- A short tail clears with a reminder.
- A whole team outstanding usually means they never saw it — check they have activated
their accounts before chasing individuals.
- Long-outstanding is the actual risk, and the reason to review the list periodically
rather than only at issue time.
When a policy changes
Issue the new version and collect acknowledgements again. Acknowledging the previous version is not evidence of having seen the new one — and the gap matters most when the change is significant, which is exactly when people assume the old acknowledgement still counts.
Keep the earlier record rather than overwriting it. You may need to show what someone agreed to at a point in time.