Hi Siobhan,

Good for you!

I would say we only need a handful of policies and they should be in the background for emergencies (if they’re serious, for example, disciplinary it’s hard to make them friendly, but they can definitely be stripped back and more human.) I love your idea of not even calling them policies but guidelines! This chatroom feed might give you some inspiration about what others are doing.  What we’ve seen work well with clients is to have a culture handbook which has statements that reflect how you want people to feel rather than a policy – check out this resource here – changing your employee handbook. 

Good luck and keep us posted on what you do!