• support@bizmanualz.com
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Help
  • My Account
Policies and Procedures Manual Template WordPolicies and Procedures Manual Template WordPolicies and Procedures Manual Template WordPolicies and Procedures Manual Template Word
  • Policy
    Procedure
    Manuals
    • CEO 9-Manual Set-45% Off
    • CFO 5-Manual Set-34% Off
    • Policy Procedure Software
    • Accounting Manual
    • Finance Manual
    • IT Policy Manual
    • HR Policy Manual
    • Sales Marketing Manual
    • ISO 9001 Quality Procedures Manual
    • AS9100 D Quality Procedures Manual
    • ISO 22000 Food Safety HACCP Manual
    • Production Operations
    • Medical Office Procedures
    • Nonprofit Procedures
    • Construction Procedures
  • Document
    Management
    Software
    • Product & Benefits
    • OnPolicy Software Overview
    • On-Policy – 30-Day Free Trial
    • Testimonials
    • Resources
    • Subscribe to OnPolicy
    • Software, Procedure Manual Bundle
    • OnPolicy Help Introduction
  • Free
    Procedure
    Samples
    • Free Sample Policies and Procedures Template
  • How To
    Business
    Articles
    • Save Time Writing Procedures
    • Write Better Policies
    • Writing Procedure Manuals
    • Write Better Procedures
    • Strengthen Your Financials
      • Set Better Objectives
      • Tighten Accounting Controls
      • Improve Company Governance
      • Simplify Compliance
    • Obtain ISO Certification
      • Make a Process Map
      • Implement ISO Quality
      • Improve Quality
      • Improve Management Systems
      • Increase Customer Satisfaction
      • Make Your Business Lean
    • Solve Business Problems
      • Organize Your Business
      • Improve Business Communication
      • Be a Better Boss
      • Empower Employees
      • Making Change Easier
      • Grow Your Business
      • Find Business Improvements
      • Improve Business Processes
      • Increase Innovation
      • Better Sales and Marketing
      • Better Project Management
    • Leverage Technology
      • Automate Policy Management
      • Improve Your Social Media
      • Increase Productivity
  • Lean ISO
    Consulting
    Training
    • Improve Your Training
    • Customer Testimonials
    • ISO 9001:2015 Classes | Internal Auditor Training | Virtual
    • ISO 9001:2015 Classes | Lead Auditor Training St Louis MO
    • ISO 9000 Help | Lean Consulting Training St Louis MO
    • ISO Writer | Writing Policies and Procedures Training Class
    • Lean Training Class St Louis MO
    • FREE Quality
      Audit* Offer
0

How to Create an Effective Policy Procedure Manual

Categories
  • Writing Procedure Manuals
Tags
  • effective
  • manual
  • policy
  • procedure
  • Procedure Writing
Cost Writing Procedures

An effective policy procedure manual is clearly written and easily understood by all the employees in your organization. Remember that the objective of your policy procedure manual is to improve the efficiency of your company, establish business controls and to comply with established regulations. Therefore, the most important rule when writing a policy procedure manual is that clarity and readability are much more important than style, perfect grammar and a large vocabulary.

How To Create An Effective Policy Procedure Manual:

Procedure Writing

The policy writer must try to put themselves into the position of the users at all times. It is a good idea to develop manual review criteria, to make sure your procedure document are consistent and correct. While developing policy and procedure statements to create an effective policy procedure manual, some general guidelines for the procedure writer to keep in mind are:

  1. Explain new or unusual terms the first time they are used or in the definitions section of the statement.
  2. Avoid jargon wherever possible, especially when training new employees.
  3. Avoid unneeded words.
  4. Avoid complex writing. If the writer’s vocabulary is unusually large or if they write using complex sentence structures, the writing may be at too high a level for many of the users. Understanding is far more important than the correctness of the language.
  5. Use active verbs instead of passive phrases.
  6. Write the way you speak. Use words and phrases that you would normally use in expressing the same thought orally.

Sexism in Procedure Writing

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines “he” as used in the generic sense or when the sex of the person is unspecified. However, many people will not accept “he” being used when referring to people in general. There have been suggestions that the generic “he” be replaced with “he or she” and “him” with “him or her.”

Another recent method that is gaining acceptance is the switch to a plural pronoun with a singular subject such as “When someone orders their supplies, they will have to complete a …”

Often it is more practical for the writer to use generic nouns or by recasting sentences to include positions or titles (i.e., Applicant, Manager, Accountant, Driver, etc.) to eliminate the need for most sexism in writing of policy and procedure statements.

Number Usage in Your Procedures

Writing and development of procedures may often times include the frequent usage of numbers in the writing. The following rules cover how numbers should be used in print.

  1. Never begin a sentence with numbers. “Fifty states have been admitted to the union” not “50 states …”
  2. Spell numbers one through nine in words, 10 or larger in numerals.
  3. Compound numbers such as fractions in numerals, for example 8 1/2″ X 11.”
  4. When showing odds, use hyphens such as 4-to-1.
  5. Decimals of less than one should be preceded by a zero, for example, 0.5 percent.
  6. Dates: “the 1990s”
  7. Spell % as percent.
  8. Use numerals with times such as a.m. and p.m.

Organizing Your Procedure Ideas

To help the procedure writer formulate and organize ideas for developing and writing policy and procedure statements, it may be useful to outline the material to be covered. Outlining is a fast and effective way to show a great amount of information in a concise, efficient manner with a minimum of writing.

To achieve well-written and easily understood policy and procedure statements that flow in a cohesive and logical form, your personnel should first outline their thoughts before beginning to write a statement.

When outlining a policy and procedure statement, the following areas should be defined:

  1. What is the objective of the policy and procedure statement?
  2. What is the Company’s policy on this matter?
  3. Who does the business policy affect?
  4. When is the policy/procedure appropriate?
  5. How is the objective to be accomplished? This should include outlining major areas of your procedure in a step-by-step fashion in chronological order.

Procedure Outliningeffective policy procedure manual

There are some basic standard rules for effective and consistent procedure outlining. It may be helpful to briefly review a few of these that deal primarily with formatting. These rules concern indentation and numbering.

Standard outline formatting is as follows:

I.

A.

1.

2.

a.

b.

B.

II.

There should always be at least two of each type of character. For example, there should not be an I without a II, an A without a B, etc.

The four characters to mark each section level, Roman numerals, capital letters, Arabic numerals and lower case letters are followed by a period. Line up the periods vertically for each type of character. Thus, Roman numerals are shown:

I.

II.

Arabic numerals are lined up as follows:

5.

39.

By aligning the periods, the text is a pleasing, straight vertical line. Indentation should be uniform, usually two to five spaces for each change in type of line. The part of a single line carried to a second line should be indented the same number of spaces as the original part of the line.

Avoid:

Poorly Written Procedures

Perhaps the procedures themselves are too long, too confusing, too hard to use, poorly written, and perhaps even hopelessly inaccurate. Such procedures are typically ignored in organizations, and for good reason. Pretty soon they are forgotten relics.

Poor Procedure Communication

If training and auditing methods are inadequate, then there may not be enough awareness of procedures. Throughout the organization, procedure training should explain why procedures are important, how to find them, how to change them if they are wrong, and what procedures are relevant to particular business processes.

Poor Document Control

Without a good system to manage your documents so people can easily find procedures, retrieve them, etc.., then once again there is good change people will just ignore them. Procedures are supposed to help members of the organization, not add an additional bureaucratic maze.

So if you have a problem with your colleagues not knowing that procedures exists, or the existing procedures not being used in your organization, there is a good chance there is room for improvement in one or more of these areas.

 

An Effective Policy Procedure Manual is clearly written, easily understood by all the employees in your organization, and establishes a foundation of business controls that comply with established regulations. Clarity and readability are more important than style, perfect grammar and a large vocabulary. Download Free Policies and Procedures to see how easy it is to edit MS Word Templates to build your own policy and procedure management system.

More Articles from Bizmanualz...

  • What Is in Accounts Receivable Policy Manual?What Is in Accounts Receivable Policy Manual?
  • How to Format Your Policies and Procedures ManualHow to Format Your Policies and Procedures Manual
  • Time for Policy Procedure Management Software?Time for Policy Procedure Management Software?
  • Do You Need a Policies and Procedures Style Guide?Do You Need a Policies and Procedures Style Guide?
  • How to Create an Effective Ethics PolicyHow to Create an Effective Ethics Policy
  • How to Write a Procedures ManualHow to Write a Procedures Manual
  • Are Your Policies and Procedures Too Long?Are Your Policies and Procedures Too Long?
  • How to Write Effective ProceduresHow to Write Effective Procedures
  • What Is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)?What Is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)?
  • How to Cope with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic?How to Cope with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
Share

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Products

  • AS9100 D Quality Procedures Manual AS9100 Quality Procedures Manual Rev D | ABR217M Aerospace Quality Procedures Manual $ 395.00 $ 297.00
  • Accounting Policy Procedure Manual MS-Word Template Accounting Policies and Procedures Manual
    Rated 4.60 out of 5
    $ 495.00 $ 397.00
  • Finance Policy Procedure Manual Finance Policies Procedures Manual | ABR42M
    Rated 4.75 out of 5
    $ 495.00 $ 347.00
  • it standard operating procedures IT Policies and Procedures Manual
    Rated 4.40 out of 5
    $ 495.00 $ 397.00
  • Human Resources HR Policy Procedure Manual HR Policies and Procedures Template | ABR41M
    Rated 3.89 out of 5
    $ 495.00 $ 347.00
  • Sales Marketing Policy Procedure Manual Sales Marketing Policies and Procedures Manual | ABR44M
    Rated 3.67 out of 5
    $ 495.00 $ 347.00
  • Security Policy Procedure Manual Security Policies and Procedures Manual $ 395.00 $ 297.00
  • Disaster Recovery Policy Procedure Manual Disaster Recovery Planning Manual
    Rated 4.00 out of 5
    $ 395.00 $ 297.00
  • ISO 9001 Procedures ISO 9001 2015 Procedures | ABR211M
    Rated 4.60 out of 5
    $ 495.00 $ 347.00
  • ISO 22000 Food Safety Procedures Manual ISO 22000 Food Safety Procedures Manual | ABR213M
    Rated 3.83 out of 5
    $ 395.00 $ 197.00
 Free Sample Policies Procedures

Get to Know Us

About Bizmanualz

Our Customers

Our Contributors

Featured Products

Free Policies and Procedures

Privacy Policy

FAQs

Risk Free Guarantee

Process Improvement

Contact Us

Recent Posts

  • What Are the Customer’s Requirements?
  • How Small Businesses Can Attract Top Employees Online
  • How Can Businesses Improve Cybersecurity?
  • How Can Digital Marketing Help Businesses?
  • How to Cope with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
  • What are Financial Internal Controls?
  • What Drives the Choice of a Third Party Logistics Provider?
  • What are the Most Effective Interview Questions?

Business Procedures

Accounting Manuals Template

Finance Procedures

HR Procedures

IT Policies and Procedures Templates

Sales Marketing Procedures

Quality Assurance Policy Statement and Procedures

Medical Office Procedures

Employee Handbook Manual

Aerospace Procedures

Food Safety Procedures

Security & Disaster Plans

Production Procedures

Procedure Writing Guide

Featured Manuals

  • Alt Text CEO Bundle and Document Management Software Package $ 3,485.00 $ 2,847.21 now,
    then $ 990.00 / year
  • St. Louis ISO auditor training class ISO 9001:2015 Classes | Lead Auditor Training St Louis MO $ 2,395.00 – $ 3,270.00
  • 9-Manual CEO Company Policies and Procedures Bundle | Save 45%
    Rated 4.50 out of 5
    $ 2,495.00 $ 1,997.00
  • CFO Responsibilities Financial Accounting Procedures 5-Manual CFO Internal Control Procedures Bundle| Save 34%
    Rated 4.64 out of 5
    $ 1,695.00 $ 1,497.00
  • AS9100 D Quality Procedures Manual AS9100 Quality Procedures Manual | ABR217M Aerospace Quality Procedures Manual $ 595.00 $ 499.00
Copyright ©1999-2020 Bizmanualz, Inc. All Rights Reserved | Sitemap | Privacy Policy
0
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Help
  • My Account