How to Start Writing Policies & Procedures

Chris Anderson 

Any old policy and procedure format saves time by not having to start from scratch, right? Well, not necessarily.

Using a weak starting point can hurt employee usability, introduce confusion and user-error, and may not assist in your compliance and control objectives. The result could set your project back further and cost you even more time to fix it later. But it doesn't have to.

Drive Performance Improvement

If your policies and procedures are incomplete, outdated or inconsistent, then you are probably not driving the performance improvement you intended. And by improving your business, you can save money and help increase customer satisfaction.

Improve Your Results

To be confident you're buying a procedure template that gets the job done quickly and correctly, it's important to examine its basic elements. Take a moment to view the following features that you should be using, and also learn how to benefit with such crucial time-saving features as:

• An ISO 9000 compliant layout for easier readability,
• A clear and concise header block to ensure a procedure communicates the purpose and scope,
• Clear department responsibilities that identify who does what,
• Key term definitions to reduce confusion,
• Measures of effectiveness to quantify outcomes,
• References to related documents to improve usability,
• Listing of applicable laws or regulations to communicate compliance,
• Detailed list of revisions to track edit history,
• Forms to ensure proper control and record keeping,

Writing Policies and Procedures

Procedures should be action oriented, grammatically correct, and written in a consistent style and format to encourage maximum usability. This will result in an increase in both effectiveness and efficiency.

Improve Performance in All Departments

You can improve your procedures for many departments, improving performance and results:

• Customer Service,
• Finance,
• Information Technology,
• Sales & Marketing,
• Engineering,
• Human Resources,
• Security & Disaster Recovery,
• Manufacturing & Production,

Best Practices Saves Time

With more effective and efficient features, you can finish your policies and procedures project sooner. A core set of “best practices” policies, procedures and forms will begin to save you time right away.