Exception requests are often a thorn in the side of policy managers, and yet they are unavoidable for most.

An effective policy management process can ease the pain, which includes putting in place a “policy on policies” that describes a corporate policy, what it should include, and how policies get approved, reviewed, and trained upon, says Paul Liebman, a former in-house compliance and ethics attorney now in private consulting. Companies that manage policies well have a centralized policy management process and don’t issue policy exceptions lightly, he adds.

At many companies, however, policies, procedures, and directives are generated in a decentralized way within a company’s various business units, or facilities. “Figuring out what a policy is—and what an exception to a policy is—is difficult, because companies don’t have a lot of control over that process to begin with,” says Liebman.