Right now all your energy is consumed on building your service, MVP’s, winning pilots, initial sales and building towards your next investment round.
Getting your software start-up ready is hard enough, the last thing you need is to spend time writing company policies, right?
Wrong. Prospective clients and investors don’t care that you are a startup or that you are all working flat out and wearing various hats, they are still going to require evidence that your company is being governed in a way that protects their data and reputation.
Policies are also a great way for the founders to communicate to their team about the culture, frameworks and expectations they have for success. Teams work better when an operating framework is defined.
Spoken instructions are never enough. When everyone involved is working hard to get things off the ground, establishing clear ground rules will help your staff understand how to operate and to avoid conflict or dispute; then if you can’t avoid legal dispute, a well-written policy will limit any damage.
… so where to start.
There is no magic formula on how to start a software company, but we can help you with the 6 essential policies for software start-ups we advise you put in place from Day 1.
Health and Safety Policy
UK law states that every business must have a policy for managing health and safety. It’s imperative that your staff work within a healthy and safe workplace.
If you have fewer than five employees you don’t have to write down your occupational health policy but it’s good practice and we’ve made it easy. Accidents and unsafe conditions can land you in court.
You can learn more about the Health and Safety policy here.
Home and Remote Working Policy
The workplace for most software companies, at least at the outset of operations, is the founder’s home or a garage, but health and safety obligations still apply, so we advise putting in place a home working policy from the outset. The policy outlines home working arrangements, equipment and safety for remote working.
Longer-term, offering the flexibility of home or remote working can help to increase staff morale and improve staff retention. Software companies being open to remote working can also unlock access to a large pool of offshore talent that may be hard to find locally at a cost-effective price point.
The home working policy compliments the health and safety policy. You can read more about it here.
Equal Opportunity, Diversity and Inclusion Policy
There is no specific legal requirement in the UK to provide a written equal opportunities policy at work. Nonetheless, under the UK’s Equality Act 2010, it is unlawful to discriminate against someone in the workplace and setting out your company’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion from an early stage makes it clear that equal opportunities are a reality at your company.
You can learn more about the Equal Opportunity, Diversity and Inclusion policy here.
Website Privacy and Cookie Policy
Key to marketing your software services is your website and it’s often one of the first things you will develop. It is important that you outline the procedures your company has in place to protect website visitors’ personal data. Your policy should be aligned with data protection regulation(s) and inform visitors of the type of data you may collect, how you might use it and the processes in place to protect that data.
As well as reassuring website visitors, it also ensures that you have their permission to store cookies on their computer. The policy is aligned with UK and EU data privacy laws.
You can read more about the Website Privacy and Cookies policy here.
Employee Grievance and Disciplinary Policy
By UK law, all employers must set out a grievance procedure and share it in writing with all employees. Demonstrate that you are a responsible employer, meet your legal obligations and ensure problems, complaints or concerns that employees may have been dealt with fairly, consistently, and in a timely fashion.
Occasionally problems will arise at work and dealing with them is much easier with a clear disciplinary policy in place. Employees must understand how and under what circumstances, they will be disciplined. A standardised step-by-step process will help you ensure fair and appropriate treatment, even if you don’t formally disclose the entire procedure. It will also show that you are an employer who does not tolerate serious violations but also values remedial actions in the case of minor offences.
Providing procedures to ensure employees are treated fairly and that your company is less likely to encounter expensive, time-consuming tribunal claims.
You can read more about the Grievance policy here.
Open Source Software Policy
You’ve started development and want to reach MVP as soon as possible. Like most companies, you take advantage of the Open-source software (OSS) available to reduce development costs and in some cases improve the reliability of the software being developed.
Are all your team aware of the risks that using externally developed OSS may present to your company?
The last thing most software companies would wish for is to find out their codebase is reliant on OSS that has a restrictive licence, requiring it to be made freely available. OSS licences differ but it is key that all those involved in the development and approval of its usefully understand the implications. This policy aims to educate the team on the risks and sets out the processes that should be followed before any OSS is utilised.
You can read more about the Open Source Software Policy here.
Getting started is a challenge and that’s why we’ve made it simple.
Don’t waste time downloading templates, editing them, emailing them back and forth. Adoptech allows you to quickly build, maintain and share your company policies so that you can start your new business on the front foot. Our policy generator has over 70 policies specially designed for software companies.
Get started here or chat with one of the team if you have any questions.
