Which company policies to publish on your website

Key takeaways

Publish the policies the law requires (privacy notice, cookie information, terms for online sales, and statements like modern slavery if you meet the threshold), plus the ones buyers ask for, such as complaints, health and safety, equality and data security. Keep internal policies internal. One policies page linking to each keeps them findable.

• Legal: privacy notice, cookie information and terms for online sales.
• Threshold-based: modern slavery and gender pay gap reports.
• Buyer-requested: complaints, safety, equality, data security.
• Keep internal HR and operational policies off the website.

Which company policies should be on a website?

A website should carry the policies required by law for your activities, plus those your buyers routinely ask for. Global Bridge Labs (GBL) groups them into three tiers: legal, threshold-based and buyer-requested. Anything purely internal, such as disciplinary procedures, stays off the public site.

• What information should every business website have?
• Legal requirements for a UK business website

Which policies are legal requirements?

A privacy notice is required wherever you collect personal data, including through forms and analytics. Cookie information and consent are required for non-essential cookies. Businesses selling online to consumers need pre-contract information and terms, including cancellation rights. Regulated sectors add their own.

• What a UK website privacy policy must include
• Cookie banners and UK law: what small businesses need

Which depend on your size?

Organisations with turnover of £36 million or more must publish an annual modern slavery statement, linked from the homepage. Employers with 250 or more staff must publish gender pay gap reports on their own website and the government service. Public sector bodies need an accessibility statement.

• Modern slavery statement on your website: who needs one
• Gender pay gap reports: does your website need one?
• An accessibility statement for a business website

Which do buyers ask for?

Commercial and public buyers commonly ask for health and safety, equality and diversity, environmental, data protection and information security, anti-bribery and quality policies. Publishing a summary of each, with full versions on request, shortens supplier questionnaires.

• Should your health and safety policy be on your website?
• An equality and diversity policy on your website
• Tell clients how you protect their data

How should a policies page be organised?

Use one policies page with a short description of each policy and a link to its own page or document. Link it from the footer of every page. Date each policy and name an owner. Keep policies in HTML where they are short, and offer PDFs only for long documents.

• Which page should each piece of information go on?
• Website footer design: what to include and leave out

Which policies should you not publish?

Do not publish internal HR procedures, security details that would help an attacker, or policies you do not follow. A published policy is a promise. If you cannot show evidence of following it when a buyer asks, it does more harm than good.

• Inaccurate information on your website: the legal risk

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see in growing B2B firms: policies exist as Word files on a shared drive, and every tender means hunting for the latest versions. A single policies page with dated summaries saves that hunt and makes the business look ready for larger customers.

• See client work
• Website Design & Development for UK businesses

Policies page checklist

• List legal policies for your activities.
• Check size thresholds.
• Add policies buyers ask for.
• Date each policy and name an owner.
• Link the page from every footer.
• Keep internal procedures off the site.

Next step

List every policy buyers or tenders asked you for in the last year. Those, plus the legal ones, are your policies page.