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Policies

Policy Development Procedures

How are policies being established?

When a new policy or a change has been requested of the Office of Compliance & Ethics:

  1. The office will first make a copy of the current policy in Teams, to serve as a history and a comparison.
  2. The office will then look at all current policies and highlight changes in the law or what a policy owner has brought up. The current policy will then be compared with BYU policy to see if there is any information that needs to be added and could be used at BYUH. If, there are some procedures that could be used at BYUH, then it can be written into the draft.
  3. A first draft is then created and approved by the policy owner and the chief compliance officer.
  4. The policy owners, or his or her designee, and the Office of Compliance & Ethics confer to identify areas, groups, and individuals within the campus community, which may include faculty, staff, or students, that have a direct and reasonable interest in reviewing and commenting on the policy, policy changes, or termination. For instance, university policies that impact the workflow, compensation, or benefits of faculty members are typically made known and opportunity provided for discussion with and feedback from the Dean’s Council and/or the Faculty Advisory Council (see Academic Governance policy). The Office of Compliance & Ethics coordinates the circulation of policy drafts for comment among those identified areas, groups, and individuals and the presentation of drafts to committees or councils as determined necessary or requested by any member of the President’s Council.
  5. The draft policy is sent to the vice president. The vice president can also voice their opinion at any point, with suggestions or questions.

What is the approval process?

Once, a draft has been written out it will need to go through the approval process. The approval process involves various interest parties to ensure that all policies are substantially legal and follow state and federal regulations.

  1. Compliance will then present the draft to Human Resources and BYU Office of General Counsel (OGC) to determine those policies which are substantially legal and regulatory in nature and to make revisions and suggestions. This review may result in the draft being returned to the policy team.
  2. Once the policy team, Human Resources, and OGC are satisfied with the policy draft, the sponsor will present the proposed policy to the President’s Council for conceptual approval. The President’s Council may
    1. approve the policy in concept;
    2. approve the policy in concept with changes;
    3. reject changes to the draft;
    4. reject the policy.
  3. Once the policy is approved by the President’s Council, the Office of Compliance & Ethics will send the draft policy to OGC for final legal review. OGC will review the policy for compliance with the law and consistency and harmony among university policies and then
    1. approve the policy draft as being substantially legally sufficient
    2. or communicate that a legal hold has been placed on the policy to allow for a more in-depth review.
  4. Once the policy is reviewed by the OGC (and approved by the President’s Council if there were further substantive revisions), the Office of Compliance & Ethics is responsible for
    1. posting the policy to the university’s policy website
    2. eliminating former policies
    3. implementing a periodic and regular review of the policy,
    4. archiving documentation.

Documentation

All of the policies are then documented at policies.byuh.edu and is available for students and faculty to review. Each policy is categorized under departments, but can also be found by searching the name. Any previous versions of the policy are documented with the Office of Compliance & Ethics.

All policies will also provide the policy owner, policy sponsor, approval date, modified date, review and next review date.

Employee Voice

All stakeholders may propose changes through the established process outlined in the Policy Establishment and Maintenance policy and procedures on the policy website. Fundamental to the university is working in councils and counseling together. While individuals have their own stewardships, coordination and governance rely heavily on counseling with one another and then sustaining and supporting each individual in his/her stewardship.

Student Voice

We involve students in policy development. First, we employ students in the Office of Compliance & Ethics who are responsible for the research and development phases. Their input is vital in the process as well as giving them real-world experience. We also maintain an outreach plan to involve students from all parts of campus. This outreach plan provides an education and recourse page on the compliance website to allow students to send in any concerns relating to compliance or policy.