Are Unused Procedures Effective?
Question of the month: How can you make sure that procedures are used in your organization?
How effective are procedures that languish in file drawers or collect dust in binders… never used or seeing the light of day? What is the point of having procedures like these? We have talked in the past about why you need procedures, now let’s talk about how to get those procedures used.
Avoid Poorly Written Procedures
One reason procedures are not used in organizations is because they are poorly written: too long, too confusing, too unorganized, too inconsistent. Hiring or developing a central internal resource with expertise in technical writing and/or developing procedures is a key facet to creating or updating procedures that are readable, useable, and accurate. With an expert or expert staff serving as a base for operational documentation like procedures, and using the process owners and experts as a key resource, the result will be a more consistent, professional output.
Read more about Avoiding Poorly Written Procedures.
Training and Auditing Creates Awareness of Procedures
Once the issue of properly writing procedures is addressed, the next step to ensuring procedures are used is through clear communication to all the affected departments and processes. Procedures should not fall from the sky, arriving to the department along with a stack of other interdepartmental memos, documents and correspondence. Prior or in conjunction to a procedure being released, training should be create awareness of the procedures and explain why it is needed. Follow up audits re-enforce and emphasis the importance of the procedure being followed, as well as identify areas for correction or improvement for the procedure.
Read more about encouraging the use of procedures.
Gaining Buy-In for Procedures
What do we mean by buy-in? Basically, buy-in is getting people to believe. In the context of procedures, buy-in is getting people to believe that having, following, and maintaining procedures is good and important for the organization as well as for their department and them individually.
If they believe the procedure is necessary and helpful, as opposed to just another pointless and burdensome exercise in bureaucratic futility, then the odds of them accepting the procedure as part of their work life will be exponentially enhanced.
Read more about gaining buy-in for procedures.
Management Commitment: The Key to Getting Procedures Used
Properly written procedures, clear communication through training and auditing, gaining buy-in. It takes all of these things for procedures to take root and be considered by the staff as key organizational documents. What is the common link between all these things? Management commitment. Management assigns and allocates the resources in an organization. Without a commitment from management to invest in writing resources, clear communication, and gaining buy-in, there is a good chance that procedures will continued to be ignored; leading to inconsistent process results and potential loss of organizational knowledge.
Read more about the importance of management commitment for procedures.
On That Note
Answer to this month’s question: Procedures can play a important role in an organization, but not if they are unknown, not understood, or generally ignored. If your organization is going to take the time to develop procedures, it should try to understand the role they want procedrues to play, and then work toward developing procedures that fill that role. In any case, however, procedures can not succeed if they are not well written and without proper communication and management commitment.
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