Writing Policies and Procedures

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.