Develop procedures manual

What do you want them to know about you and the founding of your company? By sharing your story, you can go a long way in building company loyalty. Zappos feels its company history and philosophy are so important that it offers a four-week course on it for new employees.

Many of them decide to stay. Just as you did with your mission statement, use facts, not superlatives in writing your company story. Let your background, your service, and your products speak for themselves. Now it's time to brainstorm a list of what headings or sections your manual should include.

To help you get started, here are a few suggestions:. Organization chart. This chart shows who reports to whom in the company. Hiring Practices. This section includes information on how you select new staff and may also include termination guidelines for the firing of employees. Job descriptions. This section of the manual will outline the role of employees and how their positions fit into the overall organization.

The description should include duties, decision-making authority, and supervisory responsibilities. Personnel policies. Depending on your organization, this section gives details on hours, salary, vacation time, sick leave, benefits, and retirement. Conduct and Behavior. This section addresses issues of honesty theft , of appearance, and of job performance. It also details what constitutes misconduct and how misconduct is handled.

These policies may regard substance abuse, smoking, sexual harassment, and workplace violence. Health and Safety. Depending on the appropriate national and state regulations for your area, this section relates clear guidelines for safe behavior on the job, including the safe use of equipment and supplies.

Emergency Procedures. This section gives your staff direction on what to do in the event of a natural or man-made emergency. Internet and e-mails. An important aspect of a modern effective policy and procedure manual includes the use of the Internet.

According to a survey by Robert Half Management Resources, 32 percent of the more than 2, chief financial officers interviewed said non-business-related Internet use is the biggest time-waster at their workplace.

Employees chatting with each other came in second at 27 percent. Your policy and procedure manual can include details on what Internet use is and is not appropriate at the office. It also can include forms and templates on proper e-mail etiquette. Stationery and forms. By including other templates and forms in your manual, you can be assured that your employee's correspondence conveys the professional look and consistency that you desire for your company. We will delve more fully into formatting in a later chapter.

You will see that there are many more areas your manual can cover. As technology continues to remap the business landscape, be aware that you may have to make frequent updates to keep your manual up to date. Now it's time to do some research. Are you revising an old outdated manual, or are you starting from scratch? Either way, you will need a solid understanding of how your business functions before you can develop a policy and procedure manual.

Here are a few key steps:. Make sure that a valid need exists for each new policy. Is that need already addressed elsewhere? For example, do you need an e-mail or texting policy, or can it be part of your communication policy? Perhaps a brief addition to an existing policy will be enough to address a new concern. If you are starting from scratch, you can look at policy and procedure templates online, such as templates from Microsoft Word or QuickBooks, as a starting point.

Use a template's table of contents as a place to begin, adding and subtracting sections according to your company's needs. Write an introduction or "Forward" for your manual. The Forward can be in the form of a letter from your company president, and it should clearly describe the company's philosophy and objectives. This letter should be an encouraging show of support for the policies and procedures that follow and should reveal the importance of the manual as a whole.

During this initial stage and throughout the writing process, you can use your table of contents as a way to organize your manual.

You can change the wording of the headings or section titles as you go along. You also may want to add new headings or sections that pertain to your industry. Depending on the length of your manual, you may find it helpful to include to both a table of contents in the beginning of the manual and an index at the end.

An index is also useful when a manual is large, since your readers can look up topics alphabetically rather than wading through topics on the table of contents. You'll find that Microsoft Word has advanced functions for creating both indexes and tables of contents, for example.

Your next step in beginning your manual is to create a set of objectives that mirror your mission statement. You will use these goals to guide your wording for each section of the manual. Since most companies focus on customer service, let's look at that category as an example. What are your goals for customer service?

In other words, what do you want your employees to focus on when it comes to customer service? Here are a couple of ideas to get you thinking:. As you consider these points, you will soon see that they reflect your mission statement. How much autonomy do you want your employees to have in dealing with your customers? Your policy and procedure manual can spell things out. Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh has related the story of one of his company's customer service representatives who sent flowers to a new widow without consulting a supervisor.

The woman was returning boots she had ordered for her husband just before he died in a car accident. At her husband's funeral, the widow related the kindness of Zappos to her friends and family. That employee felt empowered to live out Zappos' "above and beyond" service credo. Would your employees feel they could do the same thing?

Remember, policies do not just provide restrictions; they can offer freedom. Does your company use a collection of forms as part of your regular day-to-day business dealings?

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Skip to main content. Turn off Animations. Turn on Animations. It looks like your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. Shows what role, department, or group must maintain the policy. Alternatively, for some policies governed by regulations, these sections list roles responsible for implementing the policy.

Presents related policies, regulatory documents, procedures, forms, and guidelines for reference. Reference any other policies or documents that support the interpretation of this policy.

A table that points users to training programs, paperwork, other company documentation, telephone numbers, and sources to help carry out procedures. So, make sure that you create a list of priority tasks, policies, and procedures. Begin with the most important ones! Keep in mind that some policies will also rely on federal law such as anti-racism policy, etc.

It should be easier for you to find pre-written policies based on current federal and state laws. Therefore, start with those. Not every task or policy in a company will need detailed instructions for carrying out. So, while scheduling which procedures to outline in detail, consider the following questions:. Begin with the bigger issues, narrowing them down into the smaller ones. For instance, instead of starting with the dress code policy, start the manual with the category of hiring processes or eligibility.

Start by writing a clear, and cohesive paragraph that quickly overviews the manual about what your staff expects from the organization, and what the organization expects from them.

Use the blueprint style to create subcategories inside the manual and use a table of contents to allow for quick reference checks. Always keep in mind that you can change the policies and procedures if something goes wrong or add new ones whenever you want.

You can make amendments to the manual if you add or remove a service or position. Your policies and procedures manual is a significant document and should be constantly revised for relevancy. Bit is a new-age documentation and knowledge management tool that provides a common workplace for managers and business owners to collaborate, document, track and share their knowledge, list policies, organize information, set procedures, and implement them together.

Once you are done documenting, you can simply export them as PDFs, Markdowns, Word files, and much more. Some features in a knowledge base solution like Bit. There you have it, folks! It allows people to work together to resolve day-to-day business problems without requiring unnecessary supervisory involvement.