Writing Policies and Procedures

How many times have you or someone who reports to you been in this situation?

You earned a major promotion by being a Star performer. But the promotion came with a dark side! You find yourself suddenly overwhelmed with work. No one knows how to do your old job as well as you do, so you're constantly answering questions and doing your old tasks as well as learning your new job. You practically live in front of your computer. You've been working nights and weekends for weeks, but you just can't get it all done. You're so exhausted your performance is suffering and your boss wonders why she promoted you. If you can't get things under control, you'll end up in the hospital or the unemployment line.  What do you do?

A. Work harder! Sooner or later you'll catch up?
B. Spend more time teaching your staff to take over your job?
C. Take time to create detailed work instructions and an Operations Manual for your staff?

Let's look at the options:

A. Working harder isn't the answer. Working smarter is. You've got to learn to delegate. Don't fall into this career quicksand! Could you be scared of your new job and feel more comfortable doing the work you already know? Get over it!

B. Teaching others to do your old job is the right idea. As long as no one else knows how to do your old tasks, you'll be stuck doing two jobs. That's a classic Star Performer trap. You've got to teach your replacements. Unfortunately, the more time you spend teaching and coaching others one-on-one, the farther behind you'll get in your new duties. And, if it's all word-of-mouth people will naturally forget details so you've got to be available all the time for questions. By making yourself too available, it's easy to still end up doing the work yourself anyway--or obsessing over details and driving everyone crazy. Just teaching isn't the best strategy.

C. Writing down standardized procedures that anyone can follow is the best way to delegate. If you spend just a fraction of your overtime hours in a quiet room writing simple work instructions for how to do your old job, you'll get out of the overworked trap much more quickly. Sure, it takes a little effort now, but it pays off BIG in the long run. With written instructions, not only will other staff members be able to perform new tasks right away, but they won't interrupt you constantly to ask questions because they forgot or weren't paying attention when you explained things verbally. It's all written down. They'll be productive faster, and be empowered in the process. You'll have time to concentrate on your new job and you won't be tempted to break down and just do your old work because no body can do it as well as you. Everybody wins. You might even get promoted again!

For more on this topic, see previous post on All Systems GO! blog  Got too much on your plate? Create a delegation system. 
 

In an previous post  Do "Unwritten Rules" Undermine Your Business?, The Good Business Systems squad warned about the dangers of operating your business with "unwritten rules." This question from the May issue of St. Louis Small Business Monthly highlights more of the dangers. What happens when star performers leave and take their "unwritten" knowledge out the door with them?

My biggest all-star employee just left the company to work for a competitor.  He was efficient, virtually mistake-free and energetic.  When he left, he took with him a bunch of unwritten knowledge about how he did his job.  I now have a couple of people that are similar in background and knowledge, but they just can’t match what this person was able to do.  Besides working on my employee retention, how can I get access to the hidden or tribal knowledge that people like this all-star have?  What is a way that I can document the habits that separate all-stars from bench warmers?

- Missing My All-Star, Maryland Heights Business Owner

If you are still relying on word-of-mouth training and tribal knowledge you are putting your business at risk. 

The very best way to retain the knowledge of star performers is to capture that unique knowledge as part of your company's operations manual and standardized procedures.  By writing policies and procedures that clearly explain your unique business system and contain the unique details that only your All Star performers understand you can prevent costly "brain drain" and also improve your corporate training effectiveness.

Don't wait until a star performer leaves and you are left with a big knowledge gap to overcome. COMPROSE Zavanta software is designed specifically to make it easy for your "All Star" Subject Matter Experts to capture their special knowledge and share it with others through effective policies and procedures. It provides all the tools necessary for writing policies and procedures that others will read and use. You can learn how other organizations have successfully implemented this strategy at www.comprose.com.
 

Often the burden of writing policies and procedures, Employee Manuals, and Operations Manuals falls on the shoulders of training or HR departments. But to get the real value of living, breathing systems, the whole organization needs to be involved in creating and maintaining standardized procedures. This can be a challenge, but the results are well worth the effort.

Here are some ways to encourage employee participation in preparing and maintaining effective procedures: 
 

• Use experienced employees as subject matter experts and procedure writers
• Provide support and guidance for subject matter experts in good techniques for writing policies and procedures so they know what to do
• Provide all employees an opportunity to give input on the procedures they use
• Implement a system that encourages any user to raise an issue or recommend improvements to an approved procedure

Two common mistakes people make when writing policies and procedures involve opposite sides of the same coin—including the wrong level of detail. Some policies and procedures fail because they are so vague and generic that people can’t use them. Not enough detail. Other policies and procedures are so long-winded and complex that people can’t follow or understand them. Too much detail.
 

If your goal is writing policies and procedures that get read and used, you need to find the right balance between conciseness and completeness. “Completeness” doesn’t have to do with how long the policy or procedure is. The best test for completeness is how usable the information is. Does the document contain enough information so the reader can perform the task safely and correctly—but no more than the task requires?
 

You can tell that you have included the right level of detail when the least experienced, trained user can safely perform the procedure as written without needing to ask questions.
 

To achieve this balance, writers should focus on the “Need to Know” information and leave out the “Nice to know” information. “Need to know” means just the information required to safely and efficiently perform the task.
 

So, what if one person’s “Nice to Know” information is another person’s “Need to Know” information? What do you do then?
 

You can get the best of all worlds and get the most value from your Operations Manuals, or Policy Manual by designing your content to provide DRILL DOWN access so each reader can access the level of detail he or she needs at a given time. Operations Mapping techniques and Zavanta software are specifically designed to help you achieve the right level of detail in your content and allow easy drill down for maximum effectiveness.

Watch our upcoming posts for more tips and techniques that you can use for writing policies and procedures that deliver more value. You might also want to check out our webinar series, particularly our How to Create User-friendly Procedures webinar. Follow the link to download a data sheet.

How many times a day do you and your colleagues stop and interrupt a co-worker or supervisor to ask a question or get help in performing a basic task? 

According to a report in Time Magazine, on a typical day, workers are interrupted about 7 times an hour! That’s 56 interruptions a day, and 80% of them are considered trivial.  According to a study by Basex Research, interruptions cost the U.S. economy $588 billion a year.

In our own research performing operations consulting to organizations across industries, we have found employees in typical organizations spend an average of 10% of their days consulting with co-workers and supervisors for help performing routine tasks. That amounts to 45 minutes a day spread across a 7.5 hour workday. If you have a 300 employee company with an average composite wage of $20/hr, that time rapidly adds up to a labor cost of $1,080,000 a year! 

Organizations who have a clear system of standardized procedures available to employees in easy to access operations manuals can dramatically reduce the cost of interruptions, work stoppages, and lost productivity throughout their companies. When employees can simply look up the answer quickly and reliably, they complete their work more efficiently without interrupting others and that saves the entire organization.

For more ideas on how streamlining your business systems can reduce costs and improve organizational performance, download a copy of COMPROSE’s free e-book, How to Be an Operations SuperHero: 3 Frequently Overlooked Ways to Improve People Performance and Help the Bottom line. 
 

Whether you have an official Operations Manual or not, the people in your organization apply policies and procedures everyday to guide decisions and complete their work. You might ask, Why bother to write down standard operating procedures and policies and make them "official"?  Many organizations don't. They operate by "unwritten rules," informal policies and procedures that get passed on—or NOT—by word-of- mouth from employee to employee.

Well you've heard the old joke, an oral contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Unwritten rules are the same. There's no accountability. There's always somebody who "didn't get the memo." When nothing is written down and standardized, your organization will quickly develop inconsistent and inefficient operations practices that can lead to big problems over time.

How do you keep from undermining your business with unwritten rules? Capture your unique "system" in tangible form that everyone can look at, refer to, and correct when necessary.

This is the very core of COMPROSE's Operations Mapping approach. By writing policies and procedures that clearly explain your unique business system you can guarantee that your employees make better choices on a day-to-day basis to prevent errors, streamline business processes, and succeed at improving organizational performance.

For more, see 5 Common Mistakes Executives Make that Derail Operations Excellence.
 

What’s the most important factor in reducing task errors? Employee Skills? Training Methods? or the “System” itself  (aka steps used to perform the task)? 

An interesting research study carried out by Michael Byrne of Rice University and Elizabeth Davis of the University of Texas overturns many common assumptions about employee training methods and performance improvement. They were interested specifically in why “post-completion” errors are so prevalent. In a post-completion error, a person correctly completes a series of actions but then fails—or forgets—to complete an essential final step. Running a complicated photocopying job but then walking off and leaving the original documents behind in the copier is an example of a post-completion error most of us can relate to.

To investigate this, Byrne and Davis created controlled laboratory studies and compared performance results using two distinct step sequences for completing the same task.   They also, examined the relative effectiveness of employee training methods (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) on correcting post-completion errors. We found the results, published in the journal Human Factors, “Task Structure and Post-completion Error in the Execution of a Routine Procedure”  fascinating. They surprised even the researchers.

None of the “motivational manipulations (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) had a reliable effect on altering task performance (for either task completion time or task accuracy)." The only group that consistently outperformed the others was the one that followed the better procedure in the first place.

When the standard procedure that test subjects followed included the “post completion” step within the logical sequence of the task (rather than as a separate “after task” activity), errors were drastically reduced.  The only difference between the test groups was the ORDER of the steps given in the written procedure test subjects followed.  Yet, the performance results showed a significant difference in error rate.

The implication for organizations wanting to improve organizational performance and reduce errors is to the most effective technique is to streamline systems and procedures. Changing corporate training methods and varying strategic management processes, such as reward versus reprimand, did not achieve the results that simply defining a clear, efficient procedure did.

For more on how streamlining your business systems can reduce errors and improve performance, download a copy of COMPROSE’s free e-book, How to Be an Operations SuperHero: 3 Frequently Overlooked Ways to Improve People Performance and Help the Bottom line. 

The Good Business Systems Squad shared a study with us that we found really thought provoking. Researchers Michael Byrne of Rice University and Elizabeth Davis of the University of Texas created controlled laboratory studies to examine the relative effectiveness of employee training methods on correcting post-completion errors. Published in Human Factors, their study, “Task Structure and Post-completion Error in the Execution of a Routine Procedure” compared the effectiveness of four common training practices for improving performance and reducing errors.

Sometimes referred to as “Blame and Train,”  the four training techniques were:

1.      Reprimand: When testers made errors they were reported for poor performance and advised to improve.
 

2.      Reinstruction: When testers made errors they were reported for poor performance and advised to re-read the manual and take a test to demonstrate proficiency.

 

3.      Praise: Testers were praised for good performance and advised to keep up the good work.

 

4.      Redesign: When testers made errors, they were trained on a different procedure and re-tested.

The results surprised even the researchers! They showed that none of the “motivational manipulations (reprimand, reinstruction, and praise) had a reliable effect on altering task performance (for either task completion time or task accuracy)." The only group that consistently outperformed the others was the one that followed the better procedure in the first place.

The system or step sequence the tester followed had a much greater impact on performance than any other factor!

Wow! This research has some significant implications for corporate training departments to reflect on. Are we investing our resources in the areas that can have the biggest impact on ROI? Before we invest in training, blaming, or even rewarding, do we start with clear, effective “procedures” that support good performance?

Is it the employee or the “system” that needs improvement?
 

If you want one simple, easy to remember rule for writing policies and procedures, work instructions, and employee manuals that get good results, this is it!

Start each step with an Action Verb.

It takes a little discipline to apply this but you'll be amazed at how effective it is at keeping your instructions clear, concise, and easy to understand. 

Use the command form. Make the first word of each step a VERB that captures the ACTION. 

Examples:

Watch for more tips and techniques that you can use for writing policies and procedures that deliver more value. You might also want to check out our webinar series, particularly our How to Create User-friendly Procedures webinar.  Follow the link to download a data sheet.
 

Here's another tip for writing policies and procedures and employee manuals that get good results. 

Provide the RESULT as well as the Action in your steps.

This is an simple but powerful way to keep people from taking a wrong turn and getting confused, or worse still making a costly error! Unless you tell your readers what to look for, they will not know if the result they get is correct or not. Try to provide a verifiable outcome for each step.

Example:

If correct result of mixing 2 chemicals is that the solution turns BLUE, then be sure to tell the reader that. If the solution does not turn blue, something is WRONG.

Similarly, if after selecting ENTER in a software step, a specific screen should display, then show the correct result. If something else displays, the reader will know something is wrong.

See related tip: Be SPECIFIC when Writing Step-by-Step Instructions

If your goal is writing policies and procedures that get read and used pay special attention to how you write step instructions. Tell the reader exactly what to do when you give instructions. Do not assume that your readers will know what you mean. Chances are they won't. Vague instructions only confuse and frustrate people.  For best results, provide a verifiable outcome right in the step instruction.

Example:

Poor: Stir the solution until thoroughly mixed.   (What does "thoroughly mixed" mean?)

Instead be specific: Stir the solution for 2 or 3 minutes. Or, Stir the solution until no powder remains at the bottom of the flask.

Also, be sure to include quantities and measurements in the instructions. 

For example, don't just say "Cut a long piece of rope."  Say, "Cut a 12 foot piece of rope."  Don't say "Add sugar." Say "Add 1/2 teaspoon of sugar."

Watch for more tips and techniques that you can use for writing policies and procedures that deliver more value. You might also want to check out our webinar series, particularly our How to Create User-friendly Procedures webinar.  Follow the link to download a data sheet.

Would it surprise you to know that an estimated 41,550,000 Americans never take vacation from work--much less a day off?  Some of the reasons? 

• nothing will go right if they are not there to supervise
• too many crises piled up last time they were away.

Check out the video below Another Day at Snafu Inc --The Office Manager's Day Off  to see the havoc that ensued when Everyone DOESN'T know what to do!
 

No matter how good your corporate training programs and employee training methods, getting employees to apply what they learn is an ongoing challenge.  A recent WallStreet Journal Business Insight Report cited the following sobering statistic,

"just 10% to 40% of training is ever used on the job, [and] it is clear that a big chunk of the tens of billions of dollars organizations spend annually on staff development is going down the drain."

It doesn't have to be that way.

Often anxiety and old habits serve to undermine employees ability to apply what they have learned. Supporting employees "post-training" by reinforcing best practices is critical to preventing wasted training dollars.  A powerful way to achieve this result is to base training on the foundation of standardized business processes and to provide clear, detailed procedures to employees 24/7.  Easy-to-follow business systems provide the necessary "glue" that make corporate training more effective. Clear policies and procedures help employees apply their training better once they return to their day-to-day activities. 

For more on this topic see related posts:

Your Policies and Procedures Double as Efficient and Effective Training Tools

Making a Difference With Training, Building Confidence and Momentum One Employee at a Time
 

If your goal is writing policies and procedures that get read and used consider how you write your sentences. In addition to using simple, direct terms avoid unnecessarily complex syntax.

Subject verb object is the easiest sentence pattern in English to read and understand.

It follows the pattern: who is kicking whom.

Examples:

• The attorney (subject) signs (verb) the contract (object)
• The operators (subject) answer (verb) calls (object).
• You (subject) choose (verb) the solution (object).

To make your sentences clear and easy to read, try to use this pattern for 75 to 80% of the sentences in your policies and procedures.

Watch our upcoming posts for more tips and techniques that you can use for writing policies and procedures that deliver more value. You might also want to check out our webinar series, particularly our How to Create User-friendly Procedures webinar.  Follow the link to download a datasheet.

In an earlier post, we recommended that you keep this mantra in mind when writing policies and procedures for your organization: Time is money and people are busy! Your colleagues don’t get paid for plowing through long-winded prose in your company procedures manual.  Cut to the chase and keep your sentences short. 

 

When possible, limit the average number of words per sentence to 15 to 20. This does not imply that all sentences must adhere to 15 to 20 words. Of course, you may vary your sentence length for emphasis but use short sentences for instructions or information that you want your reader to remember.

 

Tips for writing shorter sentences:

• Read the sentence aloud. If you have to take a breath, you need to shorten or break up the sentence.
  
   
• Avoid wordiness by cutting useless modifiers and breaking up long thoughts into several sentences.
  
   
• If the topic is complicated, balance it by using short sentences to explain things. Even if the sentence sounds choppy, readers will remember a short sentence better than a long explanation.
  
   
• Avoid clutter. If your sentence contains several points, consider breaking them into a list.

Nothing happens on a Hollywood movie set until the Director hollers Action! The same is true when it comes to procedures. Have you ever tried to follow a written procedure and work instruction and not been able to figure out what you are supposed to DO? It’s the actions that you want people to perform that make everything happen. 

Burying the action is a classic mistake that many people make when writing policies and procedures. If you want to write procedures that get read and used, focus on specific actions and use powerful not wimpy verbs. 

Here are 3 tips you can apply to strengthen the actions:

When they read your organization’s policies and procedures, your colleagues and employees don’t want to be impressed with unnecessary big words and an inflated vocabulary. They just want to understand the task at hand and get on with it.  

When you are writing policies and procedures, whenever possible, substitute direct and simple words for long or possibly pretentious words.

Here are some tips.

Instead of this              Try This Simpler Alternative

As we mentioned in an earlier post 4 Key Elements To Good Procedures, the audience is first element you should keep in mind for writing policies and procedures that your colleagues and employees WANT to read.

As you draft the text, continually ask what your employee readers need to know and how they want to see information presented. Remember that writing for an audience means writing in an easily understood style and vocabulary. More importantly, it means that you only include information that the audience needs.

When wording sentences and paragraphs, evaluate your audience's needs, background, training, and educational level.

Here are some tips:

• Trainees, new employees, or novice users frequently need a definition when you introduce a new term.
   
• Experts and technicians are familiar and comfortable with technical terminology-terms rarely need definition. If you want to define terms, include them in a glossary.
   
• A technical audience is usually comfortable with technical diagrams, charts, and tables without supporting text descriptions. You can drastically reduce your word count with effective graphics.
   
• People who perform day-to-day tasks usually do not need theoretical or design descriptions. They are more interested in the step-by-step procedures, that is the "how to do it" information.

Watch our upcoming posts for more tips and techniques that you can use for writing policies and procedures that deliver more value. You might also want to check out our webinar series, particularly our How to Create User-friendly Procedures webinar. Follow the link to download a datasheet.

We’ve been blogging about steps organizations can take to survive and thrive in the Tough Times this week. A previous post, How to Make Your Organization Bulletproof  discusses how the secret to becoming bulletproof is to focus on efficiency, productivity, and contingency planning.  Another good article on the topic is Productivity Improvement For Tough Times  by Ben Carlson,  former Chairman of the Los Angeles County Productivity Managers Network and President of the Association for Systems Management. Carlson offers solid advice about measuring and managing productivity that's worth reviewing, and he makes this key point:

“Productivity improvement may be more important at this time than at any point in recent history.  Current economic conditions necessitate cost reduction to maintain profitability.  However, many companies are using a "meat axe" approach to the problem.  They are cutting the payrolls by laying off employees.  Sure this reduces costs, but without a more methodical approach, any long-lasting gains may prove elusive.

Tough times call for tough measures, but productivity management is simply a good business practice that is more important now than ever. . . .”

Standardizing operations in all areas of your organization is the foundation of productivity. By focusing on identifying best practices, eliminating waste, and writing policies and procedures which help everyone understand your unique business system, you can make big strides in boosting productivity.

As Carlson puts it, “Successful organizations . . .  consistently apply these principles, techniques, procedures, analyses, and processes aimed at creating a more productive enterprise.” 

To the COMPROSE Good Business Systems Squad, that’s just good business sense in a nutshell.

For more ideas on how streamlining your business systems is what forward looking companies do, download a copy of COMPROSE’s free e-book, How to Be an Operations SuperHero: 3 Frequently Overlooked Ways to Improve People Performance and Help the Bottom line. 
 

A previous post, “Is Layoff the Layoffs Good Advice?” explored the downside of the knee-jerk reaction many businesses take to negative economic news and the long-term consequences of that approach. 

This thought from the article “Surviving economic downturn with talent”   offers a similar spin on that topic from Ceridian, HR and Corporate Training experts from “across the Pond” in the UK.

“. . . Organisations need to ensure they have a pipeline of talent ready and waiting for when times improve. Forward thinking employers will seize the opportunity a business downturn offers to strengthen the talent pool.”

They also say:

"A carefully thought out learning and development (L&D) strategy sends a powerful signal in a crisis and acts as a great motivator."

While everyone else is running around claiming the sky is falling, successful, tough-minded businesses are looking forward. It’s fair to say that no matter how bad things might be today, they won’t stay that way forever.

That’s why one of the best things you can do in times like these is to create an Operations Map of your organization to identify opportunities to improve efficiencies. Then you can finally standardize operations by writing policies and procedures that truly reflect the very best practices for getting things done. Not only will this help your business right now to weather the economic storm by becoming lean and efficient—you will be ready to rapidly scale back up again when times improve. 

For more ideas on how streamlining your business systems is what forward looking companies do, download a copy of COMPROSE’s free e-book, How to Be an Operations SuperHero: 3 Frequently Overlooked Ways to Improve People Performance and Help the Bottom line.