Explain various types of Policies?

In order to ensure the smooth operations of the organization, the managers have to formulate and implement a number of policies in the organization. Mainly these policies can be classified as:-

Major policies: the major policies of the organization can be described as the policies that are used for providing a unified direction to the organization and which require the commitment of significant resources of the organization. In this way, the major policies provide direction to the organization in its efforts to achieve its objectives. Therefore it is very important that the major policies are capable of supporting the goals of the organization.

Supportive policies: apart from the major policies, an organization also requires to have certain supportive policies. The purpose of supportive policies is to help in the implementation of the major policies of the organization. For example, it is possible that a business organization may have developed a particular product as a part of its major policy and therefore, the research that is being conducted to find the unfulfilled demands of the customers can be adopted as a supportive policy.

Minor policies: the minor policies of the organization can be described as the policies that do not have any significant impact on the main objectives of the organization. In this way, the minor policies are related with the routine matters of the organization that are not of much significance. For example, minor policies can be adopted by an organization for the purpose of hiring casual labor in case of emergency. In the same way, another such policy can be to allow the employees to go on leave if the manager feels that the workload is less. Therefore the policies that deal with such matters are generally described as minor policies. Even though these policies also give direction in certain matters but the impact of these policy is not much significant for the organization.

Composite policies: in some organizations, a large number of policies or groups of policies are adopted. For example, for the purpose of increasing its sales, an organization may be required to follow expansion strategies or to follow an aggressive marketing plan. In this way, a number of policies may have to be used for achieving a single objective. These policies are known as composite policies.