Policy Library

This document is designed to make it easy to understand the key elements of employment with us. Our approach to our employment relationships aims to recognise hard-fought for employment rights.

We aim to ensure anyone who becomes responsible for a child has paid time off devoted to this huge new responsibility.

An adaptable induction process focused on wellbeing and support, as well as practical, legal and technical tasks.

A policy which aims to create environments that prevent safeguarding issues from arising, and outlines how to respond to incidents if they occur. It applies to: children, adults at risk of harm, staff members, board members, and others.

This policy aims to clarify what types of bespoke work we will do (workshops or consultancy); how it will be decided (based on capacity and equity questions); and what we will charge for the work (sliding scales based on org income).

In recognition of the gravity of the climate emergency, the PTC will donate up to 6 days leave per year (pro rated depending on your working hours) to every employee to spend on direct action – e.g. attending or preparing for demonstrations or other related voluntary activity.

A handy adaptable exit process including items around support & organisational learning as well as practical, legal and technical concerns.

A policy that allows employees to take “protest leave” to participate in demonstrations or civil action related to major political issues, without it counting against their holiday or sick leave, as long as it doesn’t interfere with time-critical projects and is approved by their manager.

A wage system based on Platform’s policy, with important additions to pay adjustments for dependents (including children) and housing.

A policy challenging the ways in which discrimination against parents and carers is still the norm in most workplaces. Includes: maternity leave and pay; paternity / second parent leave & pay; shared parental leave & pay; and adoption leave & pay.

A values based policy aimed at supporting staff health and wellbeing based on years of adapting and learning to shape our practice which we have now formalised into a policy.

This policy aims to clarify who is involved in day-to-day decision making and the structures that support the team to be involved, as well as for others to get more involved.

A support and accountability system for a small non-hierarchical organisation, designed to avoid the pitfalls of annual reviews and strengthen a disability justice approach.

This policy has guidance on: travelling to a work meeting/workshop, travelling to an external training (for staff development) and commuting.

A policy that provides two ways into a role for employees, acknowledging that not all hierarchical work relationships are equitable. It also involves staff members in the process and allows current workers to have a first go at a role.

A framework for traveling for a collective covering 1) which expenses are reimbursed, for who, and how; and 2) how to count working days when traveling. It provides guidelines and suggestions regarding how to think about travelling in an activist context.

This policy is our framework when deciding to accept funding from a certain source. It lays out who we want and do not want as funders, and the due diligence process for new funders.

The structure of a flat management system, including core groups (for internal work), delivery roles (for programme work), meeting cycles and related support systems.

A policy that establishes monthly sessions for team members with external mentors. The sessions aim to provide support, facilitate realistic workplanning, and offer an external perspective on team dynamics. Annual appraisals and anti-oppression meetings are also conducted by mentors. Confidentiality is maintained with three clear exceptions.

A policy outlining that we do not have a dress code and employees decide how they dress. They are invited to dress in ways that make them feel comfortable and authentic.

In Autonomic, we make decisions collectively, while also attempting to empower autonomous action by individual workers. We designed our decision making process using decision making tools we had experienced through participation in various horizontal organisations. We hope this tool is useful to others in the struggle for a better world.

This document sets out our values, as well as what each of these means for behaviour and practice, with examples of the habits team members can adopt which would mean they are living the values.

A policy that defines a financially-healthy organisation and outlines actions to undertake if that status isn’t met at different points in time. It also includes a simple plan to increase financial reserves.

A decision making and prioritisation processes that enables us to work efficiently in a high-trust culture within our flat structure.

Our approach to learning and development for team members, as a flat structured organisation.

An unlimited PTO policy that seeks to pre-emptively address the more common issues with such policies, including some evidence that staff are less likely to take time off in an unlimited PTO scheme.

A performance management process for a small self-managed co-op that allows for democratic overturn of panel decisions if over half of the co-op members object.

This policy includes: how decisions are made in a small team, the principles that underpin them, which decisions can be made by whom, and what steps will be taken to support more equitable involvement in decisions. It is based on consensus and mandate decision-making mechanisms.

Maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave are areas that are covered by legislation. This policy offers terms that are additional to the statutory allowance and tries to make the language more gender neutral.

A safeguarding policy for a small charity that works with adults, based on values of liberation, equity and anti-oppression and informed by Maslaha’s Radical Safeguarding workbook.

This process provides a space for reflection and feedback: how is everyone doing, and how are we doing as a collective? It includes written self reflection and written feedback from others and an hour-long feedback meeting.

This policy lines out how we want to build equity into our recruitment processes as we realise that making recruitment a more equitable working method will allow more people from racialised backgrounds and people with disabilities to work in our organisation.

A membership, decision making, group structure, core values and code of conduct policy for a user-led member-ship organisation with roughly 100 members, from a wide range of backgrounds.

A comprehensive digital rights-based website privacy policy with detailed information about what and how site users details will be used, including by partners. Includes: user rights, text on organisational refusal to share personal data with authorities and how to have your data deleted.

A gender-neutral and trans-inclusive policy for new parents—of all kinds—taking time off work.

A policy for the situations in which a member of staff can take leave to support the care of another, with broad and detailed definitions of what constitutes care and who the policy can apply to. Also includes legal framework.

A meeting template and policy description for a small workers’ cooperative to improve communication, surface and address tensions or conflicts that exist amongst the group. It’s about making space for the kinds of conversations around group needs and dynamics that are easily side-lined.

An outline of how we request staff, clients and visitors to behave in our space. The purpose is to support everyone to feel comfortable and respected, especially those from marginalised communities who regularly face prejudice in broader society.

A decision making policy for a migrant-led voluntary group with over 100 active members. Includes: principles, outline of consensus process, which decisions can be made by which groups or individuals, what to about decisions where it is unclear who should make them, and a decision record keeping template.