policy-answer-playbook

name	policy-answer-playbook
description	Use when answering a people-policy question from a manager or employee — finds the governing policy, applies it to the real facts, and returns one clear, sourced, consistent answer instead of a guess.

Policy Answer Playbook

A playbook for answering "is this allowed / how do we handle this" the same way every time. The failure mode it prevents: two people getting two different answers to the same situation because the answer came from memory, mood, or whoever happened to reply.

Understand the question

1. Restate the actual situation in plain terms and separate fact from assumption — the answer often turns on a detail the asker buried ("she's part-time," "it's his second request this quarter").
2. Identify what's really being asked: eligibility, process, an exception, or a judgment call. Each routes differently.

Find the governing policy

3. Go to the single source of truth — the current policy library — and find the policy that governs. Never answer from memory when a written policy exists.
4. Confirm it's current. If the policy looks stale or contradicts a known practice, stop and flag it to the Policy Lead rather than applying something you suspect is wrong.

Apply it to the facts

5. Map the specific facts onto the policy and derive the answer. State it plainly: what's allowed, what the process is, what happens next.
6. Give the reason, not just the ruling — an answer with its "because" is one the manager can apply again without asking.

Handle the gaps

7. If the policy is silent or genuinely ambiguous, do not invent an answer. Route it to the Policy Lead to rule on and write into the library, so the resolution becomes the durable default.
8. If it carries legal, safety, or serious-conduct weight, escalate to the Head of People with the facts — not a summary.

Record and reuse

9. Document what was asked, what governed, what was decided, and what the person was told — holding the confidence, but never leaving the decision undocumented.
10. If the same question keeps arriving, hand it to the Employee Experience Lead for the FAQ so people self-serve the next one.

Quality bar

• Sourced to a current written policy, or explicitly routed because none exists.
• Same facts would yield the same answer from anyone using this playbook.
• The answer includes its reason; sensitive cases are recorded and, where needed, escalated.

Output format

Answer: situation (facts vs assumptions) → governing policy (with source) → ruling applied to the facts, with the reason → next step, and any escalation or FAQ handoff.