1. An apparatus, comprising: a decompression module implemented in at least one of a memory or a processing device, the decompression module configured to define a first decompressed policy vector based on a compressed policy vector associated with a first portion of a data packet received at a multi-stage switch, the decompressed policy vector defining a combination of bit values associated with a policy; and a combination module configured to receive the first decompressed policy vector and configured to produce a combined policy vector based on a combination of the first decompressed policy vector and a second decompressed policy vector, the second decompressed policy vector being defined based on a second portion of the data packet different than the first portion of the data packet, the combined policy vector configured to trigger an element at the multi-stage switch to process the data packet based on the combined policy vector.