Do you have one? Do your customers and employees know what it is? Top executives will often say something like, "That is not the way we do things around here. The truth is that they may not. Many companies operate under general beliefs, involving honesty and integrity. Those values are good ones, but when it comes down to making decisions for your company, those words are not enough. So what is a business philosophy? It is a term for the basic beliefs by which a company runs. It is the often unwritten guidelines that employees are expected to follow.
Company philosophies are often established over time and often over the course of trial and error. Relying on "understood" policies can lead to confusion and misunderstandings. Are your employees guessing at what your company philosophy is? If so, creating a policy and procedure manual can be the opportunity to make those unwritten guidelines written for all to see. Although business philosophies vary from company to company, Marvin Bower in his book, The Will to Manage, offers the following concepts as typical components of a successful company:.
If you haven't done so already, it is time to develop a strong statement that clearly summarizes your company's main beliefs and goals. An effective mission statement answers these four questions:.
Your company's mission statement should not be a copy of any other statement. Forget overdone words and phrases that everyone else uses — such as "visionary," "world-class," "cutting edge" and "outstanding" --and boil it down to what makes your company, well, your company. A mission statement should reflect the unique character and objectives of your organization in just a sentence or two. Take time to think about what your firms stands for.
What philosophy do you want your employees to keep in mind? After developing your mission statement, the next step is to include a company overview, including your key officers and staff members and a brief history of your company. You may have already drafted this information for your company website's About Us page. 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. A policy and procedure manual is the perfect way to keep your virtual employees on the same page as these manuals work like references in case someone is confused about taking a step or decision-making and enables everyone to behave in a legal, conscious, and ethical manner.
Policies and procedures are designed to regulate all major decisions, actions, and principles of an organization. These documents provide authority and necessary guidance to a company or a department on topics like- hiring practices, bank accounts, dress code, etc. To be more descriptive, procedures are specific methods used to communicate policies in action for the daily operations of an organization.
These written policies and procedures are generally integrated into a manual made available to the employees. An effective policies and procedures manual is an important management tool that allows you to focus on growth, simplifies training, and eases the ability to scale in your business! Every company faces difficulties within the workflow of its business cycle and requires documentation of its structured methodology, a framework of company philosophy, its mission, and vision that ensures visibility — agreed?
That is the purpose of a policy and procedure manual. It also set standards of conduct, behavior, and performance of employees.
A well-developed policies and procedures manual serves as an authoritative source for answers to common questions related to your business or company. Properly documented manuals speed up the process of decision-making for employees and help them follow regulations concerning business guidelines.
Eventually, resulting in higher productivity. Free Template Included. Many organizations today are simplifying how their policies and procedures are communicated by putting them online using knowledge management software such as Bit. Another purpose of a polices and procedures manual is to provide a training guide for new employees and re-train current ones. These documents reduce the time and effort put into training these employees, making the onboarding process easier.
For instance, a clear work safety and health policy will assist an employer to meet those obligations imposed on the business by law and provide a safe workplace. This is the heading of the document. Make it short and ensure that users at any reading level can understand. The purpose explains why the policy exists. This includes concerns such as legal, regulatory needs, and conflicts the policy aims to avoid. This is the most important and lengthiest part. The statements specify the main audience for the policy conditions, restrictions for applying the policy, expectations, and exclusions.
This concerns which roles or departments the policy pertains to and identifies anyone who is exempt from the policy. The international quality standard ISO requires companies to document manufacturing processes that can affect the quality of output. We should not be training new employees based on our own idiosyncrasies. SOPs can help companies create consistency within procedures. Furthermore, SOPs provide reminders for people. But the things that are tricky and that you do infrequently may require work instructions.
For things that you do infrequently, you may have to retrain every six months or so. People think an SOP is something you write and store on a shelf. Then they act surprised when they make mistakes. As an example, Johnston describes a client that he helped with instituting an in-person customer feedback process. And it was really awkward. The woman giving feedback was embarrassed.
She had red ears, a red throat. Afterward, as Johnston and his client consoled themselves, Johnston fetched the company SOPs and showed his client that every learning point from the meeting had already been documented in their quality management system. And live and breathe it? Your task may be to update existing SOPs or to write new documents from scratch. In either case, creating SOPs involves more than just sitting down to write instructions. To write a useful SOP, it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the topic.
However, you will also want to get input from others on the processes and on your written drafts. SOP format refers to the way you structure your standard operating procedure documents.
When selecting an SOP format, consider why you are creating the documents: Are they for regulatory compliance or strictly for internal use? Use what suits your documentation needs. For greater ease as you research and write, create or find a template to work with. Your organization may already have SOP templates, or you can find templates online that match your purpose and industry. The length and format of an SOP depend on how much detail the document requires to clearly explain instructions and purpose.
For example, packing instructions for workers in a book warehouse probably differ from those used by an FDA-compliant snack producer. It is crucial to clearly distinguish and label sections to help readers find what they need when they need it. After all, they may most want instructions when they are most agitated by a problem.
There are four structural approaches to creating an SOP format:. A simple checklist looks like a to-do list, with precise, numbered steps that you can check off as you finish them. You can print a task list, store it online, or publish it in any format that is repeatable, reusable, or otherwise serves the team.
Checklists are particularly powerful when they include measurable results. A simple checklist is a quick way to capture a process without taking on the burden of creating a full manual, especially if you are experimenting with processes that are not yet entrenched.
Checklists may be good for small teams and for procedures with few or no decision points. They are also powerful documents for those who are unfamiliar with processes or for processes that require precise adherence to instructions.
When a process includes more decision points, a detailed hierarchical checklist works well. Hierarchical checklists record main processes and the details of subprocesses. For formal documents in which processes may be audited, consider adding distinct, high-level steps that explain the process. As necessary, break high-level steps into individuals tasks that include separate sections for notes on equipment or other information.
This way, you can avoid adding information that may obfuscate the processes. Organization Chart: For complex procedures or the standard operating procedure manual, an organization chart can help users understand the hierarchy of responsibility for processes. Process Flow Chart: Flow charts provide a visual overview of entire processes and show how different processes relate to one another. Flow charts also supply context for detailed steps in a procedure. Flow charts are well suited to processes with many decision points.
Use these for suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs, and customers. Steps: Common formats for procedures include numbered simple sequential steps or hierarchical steps. Simple sequential steps are ordered, numbered step-by-step instructions for simple tasks that have a limited number of possible outcomes. Hierarchical steps describe procedures that consist of more than 10 actions, including branches at decision points.
This PowerPoint work instruction template from Giles Johnston emphasizes the use of pictures and short bullet points for instructions. The template includes spaces for two images and a short paragraph or a few bullets for each slide in the deck. PDF PowerPoint. Johnston also offers this basic work instruction template. In addition to the meta information, such as author, SOP title, date, SOP number, and issue, this template provides a small space to describe the context of the procedure and a large space to fill with steps.
Word PDF. When collecting work-related documents, you likely have to standardize a system for formatting, naming, storing, and archiving. This document control SOP template helps you decide what documents to control, as well as how to format, name, number, store, and archive them. This template includes space for discussing who is responsible for document control and for updating the document control SOP. Word PDF Smartsheet. In addition to identifying the SOP and describing its purpose, this template provides space to list reference documents, necessary supplies and equipment, troubleshooting information, quality control details, and an SOP distribution list.
That way, people can get trained and refer to the documents with consistent expectations. Reduce text and increase pictures and graphic; add videos, if necessary. Whatever it takes to move from the world of de facto SOPs or de facto work instructions, do it. Your focus should be on conveying as much information as possible in a small space; the PowerPoint slides and bullet points from the pictorial standard operating procedure template above are a good example of this kind of economical communication.
And make sure that you include all necessary details. In reality, there may be 15 steps across a process that you need to capture. What else should you know to write SOPs with confidence? Here are some important elements to keep in mind:. Sometimes, employees avoid SOPs because the documents contain difficult jargon and uninspiring layouts.
Thick manuals full of obscure terminology were once staples of engineering and manufacturing environments. Whether you are an enthusiastic or reluctant procedure writer, do not underestimate the amount of time you need to document procedures.
Follow these steps for clear and effective writing:. A manual can be as simple as a collection of Microsoft Word documents that you organize into a master document or a traditional binder with pages. If the documents are not well executed, the information will be difficult to access or understand.
Then people will start making up their own approaches, which leads to needless increases in variability and a decline in quality. Cox says that an SOP manual can stand on its own, but is usually included in a quality manual, together with policies, processes, procedures, and work Instructions. Alternatively, the quality manual may include only SOPs, inspection procedures, and work instructions. An operations or SOP manual can work well as a repository for procedures, but you must be sure to link everything therein.
Johnston cautions against orphans i. Users can stumble across content by accident. Procedures form a part of a management system by defining established or prescribed methods and processes. We build procedures from steps, which are the aspect of processes where individuals can introduce variation. SOPs provide the overall framework, while work instructions can change more often.
An SOP characterizes relationships and control measures," says Johnston. Documentation is never a substitute for training. According to Cox, the human resource department stores various skills matrices, but for optimum efficiency, managers on the shop floor should keep this information.
That way, when technical questions arise, the manager will know who is the in-house expert. In addition, if a team member calls in sick or goes on holiday, the manager will be able to identify capable individuals to perform specific tasks. SOPs describe your unique business processes and the steps you require to finish those processes in accordance with industry, legal, in-house, and competitive standards. Procedures are step-by-step descriptions, whether predominantly text or graphics.
Standard operating procedures should form the basis of regular training and provide a structure of metrics for performance reviews. SOPs also help you achieve the following:.
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