A Policy for Two Employees

The decision has already been made

Somebody in your business is using one of these tools this week, whether or not it has been discussed.

They are drafting an email, checking a calculation, or getting help with a description.

So the question is not whether to allow it, since that has been settled by circumstance.

The question is whether anybody has told them where the edges are, and at present almost nobody has.

Why a ban does not work

• It is unenforceable on a personal phone.
• It removes the conversation, not the behaviour.
• You lose the mistakes being reported.
• It signals that you have not thought about it.
• The useful cases go too.

The third is the practical cost. Somebody who has broken a rule does not mention that the draft they used contained a wrong figure, and you find out from a customer instead of from them.

What half a page needs to cover

Three things, and no more.

What must never be pasted in: customer names and details, anything about a customer's situation, contracts, staff information, and anything confidential.

What must always be checked before it leaves the business: every figure, name, date, standard, and regulation.

And who to ask when unsure, which is a name rather than a process.

Those three cover the actual exposure, and a longer document covers no more of it.

Write it in plain words, since a policy written in legal language gets skimmed and forgotten.

Say why, briefly

Since the reasons are not obvious and somebody who understands them applies the rules to cases you did not think of.

Explain that pasted text goes to another company and that customer information is not yours to send.

Explain that the output is confident whether or not it is correct, which is why checking cannot be selective.

Two sentences on each is enough, and it is the difference between a rule followed literally and a rule understood.

It also means somebody encountering a new tool applies the same thinking rather than treating it as something outside the policy entirely.

A worked example

A business with three staff had said nothing about any of this.

They found out it was in use when a quote went out containing a figure nobody could source, which had come from a drafted email.

The owner wrote half a page: three things not to paste, a requirement to check every number, and his own name as the person to ask.

It was discussed for ten minutes at a Monday morning and pinned in the office.

Two weeks later a member of staff asked whether a supplier's specification could be uploaded, which was exactly the question the policy was for.

The answer was no, and asking it was the policy working.

Include the useful cases

Since a document listing only prohibitions reads as disapproval.

Say what it is fine for: drafting your own writing, summarising documents you own, generating ideas, explaining something you already understand.

That makes the boundaries clearer and stops people treating the whole subject as risky.

It also encourages the uses that genuinely save time, which is the point of allowing it at all.

A policy that only says no gets read as a ban regardless of the wording.

Decide about paid accounts

A practical question that follows from having a position at all.

If staff are going to use these tools, a business account is better than personal ones: the terms differ, the data handling frequently differs, and you have some visibility.

The alternative is people using personal accounts on personal devices with your business information in them, which is where you are now.

Whether that is worth the subscription depends on how much it is genuinely used, which the next few weeks will tell you.

Ask, rather than assuming, since the honest answer is frequently more than you expected.

Revisit it in six months

Since anything written now describes a situation that is moving.

Put a date on the document and a note to review it, which is what stops it becoming an artefact nobody trusts.

New tools will appear inside software you already pay for, which is a case the current version probably does not cover.

And what is acceptable will shift as clients and customers form their own expectations.

Half a page revisited twice a year is worth more than a thorough document written once and never opened again.

Ask what they are already doing

A step worth taking before writing anything, since it changes what the note needs to say.

Ask each person what they have used these tools for in the last month, framed as curiosity rather than as an investigation.

The answers tell you which cases are actually live in your business, which are frequently not the ones you would have guessed.

They also tell you whether anything has already gone out with an unchecked figure in it, which is better learned now than from a customer.

Do that first and the half page ends up addressing your actual situation rather than a general one.

The counter-case

Some businesses need more than this.

Anybody handling health information, legal matters, or client data under contract has obligations that a half-page note does not discharge, and may have client agreements that already forbid it.

Regulated professions frequently have guidance from their own body, which takes precedence over anything you write.

And a business with no staff needs a habit rather than a policy, though writing the habit down still helps when the first person is hired.

Write half a page covering what not to paste, what to check, and who to ask, and discuss it for ten minutes.

The half page

1. List what must never be pasted in.
2. Require every figure to be checked.
3. Name who to ask.
4. Say why, in two sentences each.
5. List the useful cases too.
6. Discuss it once, briefly.
7. Date it and review in six months.

Step three is what makes the rest work, since the situations that matter are the ones nobody anticipated and somebody needs an answer the same day.

What belongs on the first list is covered in what you should not paste into it.

Frequently asked questions

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