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Flowchart Friday. Department Focus. Productivity Tips. Project Management. Productivity Points. View Resources Get a Demo. Accounts Payable Automation Software Solutions. Toggle navigation. Powers of Policy Persuasion Following the guidelines laid out by Harvard Business Review , managers involved in a policy change process should understand how to persuade and promote the policy change to employees effectively.
People are more willing to cooperate when they like each other. Find ways to give employees genuine praise prior to a policy change. Find common ground you can agree on. You can put reciprocity into action by offering something employees will appreciate as part of policy changes. This could be something as simple as casual dress days, coupons, summer hours, etc. Enlist those who already believe in the policy change as allies. Let them help spread the word to their peers.
Provide talking points that explain the positive side of the changes. Make sure messaging around the changes is consistent and put it in writing. People are more likely to adhere to any policies that are in writing. Make sure the policy change is explained as coming from experts.
We'll admit, sometimes policies and procedures are dry and boring. Sometimes they seem like common sense recitations of things that "go without saying. But policies do more than that. They provide guidance, answer questions, solve ambiguities, detail best practices, and keep your people safe and out of legal trouble.
They define the standards for conduct and appropriate behavior. Policies and procedures are the framework that your organization is built on, reflecting your values and guiding your employees to success in their daily operations.
That means your policies and procedures manual shoulders the burden of creating your company's culture. They're the visions and expectations of your executive leadership, showing how employees are expected to carry out those visions and meet those expectations. They equip your staff to meet their strategic goals, reduce legal and regulatory risk, create standards for performance, and identify opportunities for improvement.
As you write new policies and procedures or rewrite your old ones, it's important to understand the difference between the two. Your policies are the high-level principles that set the tone for the entire organization. The procedures are how those policies are carried out. They also define the lower-level processes that shore up the policies. That is, if employee safety is one of your bedrock policies, and the organization expects complete adherence to your safety policies, the procedures establish how those policies will be followed, such as the wearing and disposal of PPE personal protective equipment , or the training requirements for handling hazardous materials.
This article will show you a few best practices for building a solid foundation in guiding your team toward success. We'll talk about how to prepare for writing your policies, how to write a policy and a procedure, and how to implement your shiny new policies and procedures. Writing policies and procedures can be a long and involved process, and you'll spend almost as much time preparing as you will actually writing. Since these are the documents that affect how everyone works every day, you need to get it right.
So here's how you can do that. Before you start writing any new policy, you need buy-in from top leadership. If it's anything more than a simple departmental requirement e. After all, these policies will drive the culture of your office, there are also legal implications of these new policies. That means there will need to be several people involved in the final approval.
Consider why you're writing your new policies, and let that inform the actual writing process. Make sure the entire team, including management, understands and buys into the "why" early on. This will set the tone, content, and even the organization of your policy manual. Establishing a standard policy template makes each policy document clear and organized.
It sets the standard for how all policies will be written and organized, so they are easy to understand and navigate. Even if you create several new policies years later, the format will be easy to recreate because you set that standard now. This will also streamline the writing process and save a lot of time. You could always write all the policies in your word processor of choice, but then you have to share the document so everyone can mark up their own version, and then you've got several versions of the same document to wade through.
Or you could upload it to a cloud word processor, like Google Docs, which at least reduces the number of different versions you're juggling. Everyone can edit the same document and all the changes will be held in the same document. But you still need something that gives you version control and can map your policies to your accreditation and licensing requirements. So it pays to use online policy management software in order to write your new policies.
It makes everything visible and transparent, and you can even automate the approval process by your managers. Depending on the size of your organization, you'll need a team to help you write your policies and procedures. It also helps you get more buy-in from stakeholders around the organization. Plus, it ensures you don't forget important information. Since your policies will affect everyone across the organization, bring in people from different departments to help.
Tap into the subject matter experts in how a particular department or role functions. Include the people who understand and can help you adhere to any local, state, and federal laws that affect how everyone functions.
Chron recommends defining an owner or admin to be responsible for managing the entire policy writing process , coordinating reviews, revisions, and distribution of the new policies.
Now that you have management buy-in, your team is assembled, and you have a structure and a technology solution, you're ready to actually start writing. Policies and procedures are designed to guide employees at every step and show them the right way to work and behave. The question is how to ensure that your employees abide by these policies and procedures? A policy and procedure manual created with user manual software holds the right answer.
This manual acts as a one-stop location where employees across teams can access all your policies, learn about them, and put them to action. This comprehensive guide tells you all about a policy and procedure manual, from what it is to how it can be created. A policy and procedure manua l is a central hub where all company policies and work procedures are explained in detail, in a structured way, for the convenience of employees.
It offers a systematic view of how employees are supposed to work, what is expected of them and how they should conduct themselves. A policy and procedure manual is a detailed document covering important information about your company policies and procedures.
If you envision a strong company culture where teams support one another and are able to contribute meaningfully towards your long-term goals, then creating a policy and procedure manual is a smart step to take.
Documenting your company policies, work methodologies, code of conduct, and other important elements that form the core of your foundation, in a manual, can bring you an array of benefits, such as:. New employees are clueless about your company on day one. Sure, there are multiple training sessions, but we all know how time-consuming they are and how lame they can sometimes be.
No more shoulder taps, unnecessary back and forth, or a trail of emails about how to do something. One manual has all the answers to every question employees have about. This means less time spending time doing back and forth seeking help from colleagues or seniors and more time working on the tasks that really matter.
Higher productivity and efficiency are, therefore, guaranteed. Confusion creeps in when employees are not sure about which business policy does what and which process to follow to do a particular task. It reduces knowledge gaps and provides employees with more clarity, allowing them to work with minimum hassles.
Many times, the policies appear complicated when someone verbally explains them. But when the same policy is explained in an interactive way with lots of visuals in the manual, employees have more clarity around what your policies do and what benefits they provide.
Employees, especially those who are new to your organization, have little idea of how they should work, what code of conduct they should follow, and what actions are considered inappropriate by your organization.
A well-built policy and procedure manual sets the right expectations and keeps employees informed about the same to ensure that there is little confusion and maximum clarity. It introduces employees to your company standards in terms of behavior, performance, work, and the expectations you have from them.
This keeps them on the right track from the very beginning. It seems to be a hard task requiring lots of time and effort. Building a policy and procedure manual can turn around this situation by making the learning process convenient and fun. Remember, it is not your regular text-heavy manual but a useful information resource with company policies explained in an engaging way.
Before writing your policy and procedure manual, do rigorous research around which policies deserve to be included and which work procedures should be explained in the manual. You can consult your HR department or subject matter experts working with your company for a long time to find out the policies, procedures, and other important information worthy of being included in the manual.
Writing about policies is not a one-off activity. It might require continuous iterations and involvement of employees across teams. Creating a team for this work makes sense, as that would mean multiple employees work in sync to churn out the best quality content for your policy and procedure manual.
They can divide the responsibilities among themselves by taking different roles such as — contributor, editor, and administrator. Those who are well-versed with your company policies and know your work procedures in and out can take up the role of contributors. They will be responsible for managing the entire content creation process.
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